


a wretched thing

by darlingpen



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Tony Stark, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Arc Reactor Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Tony Stark, BAMF Women, Child Abuse, Civil War Team Iron Man, Domestic Avengers, F/F, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Homophobia, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Entirely Canon Complicant, Not Entirely Steve Friendly, Past Child Abuse, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Avengers, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Tony Stark, Sexism, Swearing, The Ten Rings (Marvel), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and gets better with age, but only at first, he's like wine, she just won't let you tell her, toni is beautiful
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-04-22 22:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14318070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingpen/pseuds/darlingpen
Summary: She pulls herself up by her own hands with her own tools. She’s all dark curls and grease smears and a mind so full of pain she might just burst. She’s blood-red lipstick and gold eyeshadow and scars in terrible places. She’s lacy white gloves and a history of memories unwinding before everyone’s eyes. She’s angry, and she has right to be.or:Howard Stark never wanted a daughter, but that’s what he got. Antonia Boyana Stark paid the price, but her story isn’t over yet.





	1. chapter one

“Her name is Antonia Boyana Stark, Howard,” said Maria, passing the baby along to her husband. The man snorted and refused to take her in his arms.

“Italian and Bulgarian,” he muttered. His wife nodded and smiled.

“I like it. Boyana means warrior. Go on, Howard, hold her. Isn’t she beautiful?”

“She’s a girl,” he said as if it explained his resentment. Maria supposed it did. “The Stark legacy - what the _fuck_ am I supposed to do with a _girl_?”

“She’ll be the beauty by your side,” Maria offered. Howard scoffed.

“I don’t need a fucking beautiful piece of shit standing next to me, Maria,” he explained, waving his arms around. “I need a fucking _boy_ to carry on _my_ legacy. The _Stark_ legacy. I don’t see a boy, now do I? Do you? Fuckin hell. I need a drink. Give her to Jarvis, will you? I’m going to a bar.”

“I’d be delighted to keep her with me for a little longer,” Maria murmured, cooing at the baby girl. The infant giggled and shook her tiny fists in the air. Howard wanted to scream. “I’ll get Jarvis to drive me back to the mansion, Howard, how’s that?”

“Fucking hell,” Howard said again and stalked off into the hallway.

Obadiah clapped him on the back as he emerged.

“Well? How is he? Bouncing baby boy, I presume? Strong, like his father. Nice chin, I’m guessing, yeah?”

Howard sniffed and felt like punching a wall.

“It’s a fucking girl,” he said, his voice drawing out on a whine. “A girl, Obie, what the hell am I going to do with a girl?”

“Mm,” Obie said. His voice sounded like a growl. A caged animal, that’s what Howard thought of his business partner. Just waiting to be unleashed. “I don’t know. Maybe she’ll turn out to be good, eh? Keep up her old man’s legacy.”

“Like hell, she will,” Howard replied, biting back a twisted laugh. “Please, Obadiah. Let’s not be irrational.”

“Well,” said Obie, “you still got Cap. You’ll find him, Howard. We’ll find him, and _he’ll_ be your legacy.”

“Yeah, well, for now, I’m stuck with the fucking princess,” Howard said.

He punched the wall.

…

Antonia learned at a very young age to steer clear of her father when he drinks the amber liquid. She could smell it though, the metallic scent, the scent that reminded her of _blood_ and _bone_ and _nightmares_. She had to be quiet, she had to be a very good, very quiet little girl.

Be a good girl, Antonia.

Screams followed her throughout the mansion, hands would find her, wandering wandering hands, scratching and clawing and holding and pulling and hitting and she learned at a very young age the rules of the world.

She knew more things at a very young age that no other child should know.

Be a good girl, Antonia. Are you a good girl? Are you my good girl?

…

Antonia was four years old and a good girl. Not just a good girl, a very good girl. She was all dark curls and amber eyes and hushed words. Quiet was the word Maria would describe her with. Quiet and beautiful.

Antonia didn’t feel beautiful.

She felt the hand of her father on her shoulder. She felt the burn of words seek into her heart. She felt the way alcohol would feel when forced down her throat, her nose, or flung into her eyes.

She didn’t feel _beautiful_.

Edwin Jarvis was a beautiful man. He was all wrinkled skin and gray hair and eyes that gleamed with laughter. She liked him, this beautiful man. He put ointment on bruises and band-aids on cuts. He told her fairytales when she couldn’t sleep, tales of princesses who saved themselves from kings who wanted nothing to do with them, princesses who befriended dragons and taught them to be kind. Jarvis was kind, she knew.

One day, the kind and beautiful man put a wrench in her hand. He gave her screws and metal and a hammer and _tools_ \- wonderful, glorious, sleek and cold tools. They felt _right_ against her skin, a way to calm the itchiness of a new dress or the sting of a new blow. She was quiet but loud, oh so very loud in her own head, in her thoughts. So she built. She built and built and slipped wires through tiny holes and hammered screws into the loose pieces of her soul and she _built_.

“Howard, Antonia has something to show you!” Maria called. Her hand rested on Antonia’s shoulder and she quite liked the feeling. “She made something.”

 _What the_ fuck _am I supposed to do with a_ girl _?_

Maria led Antonia into Howard’s workshop and left her there.

Alone, alone, she was all alone.

Her father came trudging down the stairs, took one look at her circuit board, and let out a short-lived huff of a laugh.

“Do you like it?” Antonia asked eagerly, standing on her tippy-toes. He was probably going to be proud of her, she thought. Yes, he’ll be so proud, after all: she made her first circuit board. Jarvis was proud and Maria had nodded her approval, so yes, yes, Howard would be proud.

“Let me see this hunk of shit,” Howard ~~asked said~~ demanded.

He took a swing of that amber liquid. The one that smelled like blood. Blood alcohol.

 _Be proud of me,_ Antonia thought and handed him the circuit board.

“I worked very hard on it,” she added.

“Did I _ask_ you to _speak_?” Howard roared, shoving the glass in her face. Antonia shook her head and looked down at her feet.

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“This is shit, Antonia,” he slurred and smashed the board onto the concrete floor. He kicked and kicked and kicked with his black work boots (she became all too familiar with these black work boots) until it was nothing but flecks of green and detached pieces. She let a whimper escape her throat.

Her 54th mistake.

“Get over here,” Howard growled, grabbing her wrist and dragging her to the back of his workshop and threw open a heavyset metal door. “Stop struggling, girl.”

She obeyed.

Her father pushed her into the room - a room made completely of concrete and metal and adorned with -

with -

with -

“Captain America,” Howard said. He was proud. Not of her, no, but of him. Steven Rogers. Captain Fucking America.

“He’s a war hero, Antonia,” Howard whispered. “You could learn some things.” He left her at the doorway to wander through his things.

Portraits and pictures of the Captain ranged in size, from floor-to-ceiling length to small photographs wedged in crevices. Medals hung from hooks. A prototype of his shield sat proudly on a pedestal in the center of the room.

A map was pinned up on the opposite wall, showing different sections of the world with multicolor pins stuck in random places. Germany, the North Sea, the Arctic, Brooklyn, England, Captain America Captain America Captain America Captain America Captain Fucking America.

He was blond-haired and blue-eyed and he wanted you for the army and he was punching Hitler in the face, which made him a hero, and he was standing beside a brown-haired brown-eyed boy _(Bucky Bucky Bucky, who also fell into an icy death)_ and they were smiling. Arm around each other’s shoulders, they were smiling.

“When I find him,” Howard murmured (maybe to himself, maybe to her, she wasn’t sure), “It’s gonna be my legacy. _He’s_ going to be my legacy. Not you and your shitty circuit board. Do you understand that?”

She didn’t answer.

55th mistake.

Howard turned on her, fingers into fist, red white and blue flashing in his eyes. “I said, _do you understand that?_ ”

She answered before he could get to her, before he could unwrap that fist and grab her, grab her, grab -

“Yes sir,” she said. She didn’t look him in the eye. (Staring him down was her 32nd mistake, and she’d learned since then.)

Howard relaxed a little.

“Good,” he panted. “Now go. Leave me with him.”

Howard was all crazed eyes and teeth stained with liquor and wild, untameable fists. He was hairs-on-end and sharp knives and sharper words. He was sir, and she was Antonia, and that was all she would ever be.

…

She was five, and she realized the consequences of sticking around downstairs for a little too long. A little too long past dinner, a little too long into the night. She was five, and she realized the consequences of sticking around downstairs after Jarvis had gone to bed, after Maria had left for her own room, after Jarvis had gotten his first drink in, then his second, then his third, then -

“Come here, little girl,” Howard slurred, waving her over. “Come out from that corner of yours.”

Hesitantly, she stepped out from the shadow of the staircase and approached her father. She was dressed in the little pink flannel nightgown Maria had gotten for her, another piece of clothing that made her want to tear it off her skin.

“Come on, don’t be shy. Get over here, you little shit.”

His voice is kind.

His eyes were not.

But she was young and naive, and this was her 65th mistake (the first in a few months), and she didn’t know any better, and his voice was _kind_. He was _nice_.

She went over to his leather chair, the firelight highlighting the creases in his face, and sat down next to him. He sloshed the amber liquid and the scent of blood wafted up her nose, but she ignored it.

(The amber matched her eyes.)

“You wanna be a builder, don’t you?” Howard said. “Come on, sit on my lap. You’re my kid, Antonia. Sit on your old man’s lap.”

“Okay,” Antonia said, a little too happily, and did as he said.

“You wanna be a builder?” he asked again, hands on her arms. He wasn’t so rough and she liked it. “Don’t be shy about it. Jarvis has told me all about what you build in that room of yours. How _smart_ you are. How i _ntelligent_ you are. He says you’ve got _potential_.”

She winced at how the words spat from his mouth.

“Follow me,” he said after a moment or so, and put her back on her feet, then headed to his workshop.

Suddenly she was afraid.

Suddenly she realized how achingly alone she was.

Suddenly she wanted Jarvis.

Suddenly -

“Let’s build something,” Howard suggested. She didn’t like how his voice sounded. She didn’t like the way his lip curled. She didn’t like -

“If you’re so _fucking_ smart and so _fucking_ intelligent and you’ve got such _fucking_ potential, let’s build something. You and I. Father and daughter, eh?”

“Okay,” she said. But did she actually say it? She was such a quiet girl, though her head was very loud.

Howard smiled and kneeled down to her level. “I’m excited,” he said and patted her shoulder. He stood. “Give me one moment. Stay right there, Antonia, and don’t move.”

Her 66th mistake.

“Let’s build a machine,” Howard said when he returned, wielding an iron crowbar that had a red hue to it. He gripped it loosely, hands covered in protective gloves. “Go on, grab it. It’s okay, it won’t bite. I just need you to hold it while I go get more supplies. Two hands now, come on.”

She did.

She grabbed it.

67th mistake.

Her hands didn’t feel like hers anymore. They were the product of fire, and the fire was her, and there was something burning its way through her veins. She smelled something burning and was a bit confused because it didn’t smell very nice. Usually, whenever Jarvis grilled something it always smelled very good, because he added herbs and spices and only grilled the best pieces of meat.

No, this was something much more rotten, and she couldn’t smell any herbs or spices. She must be fairly close to the fire because the fire was her, and she was the fire, and something burned but she couldn’t figure out what.

She dropped the iron bar and she looked down at her charred hands, pink and red and everything in between.

“Aw, hey, that’s cheating,” Howard protested. He picked it up and handed it to her (68th mistake) again and she took it and there it was -

The fire, the fire, forged in fire. Her hands didn’t feel like hers anymore. Something was burning, she could smell it, she could feel it, and -

“Take it, Antonia. Take it from my hands.”

(69th mistake.)

“Pick it up, Antonia.”

(70th mistake.)

“Take it.”

(71st mistake.)

“Are you slow? You see what I’m handing you? Take it.”

(72nd mistake.)

“Take it.”

(73rd mistake.)

“Take it.”

(74th mistake.)

“Take it.”

(75th mistake.)

The next morning, kind and beautiful Jarvis found her in the corner of Howard’s workshop, staring at the iron bar that still was held tightly in her hands. He pried it from her fingers and picked her up, picked the tiny child up, picked her up and wiped her tears and wrapped her hands in thick gauze and hid her from Howard for the next two months.

Her hands were no longer hers.

They were wrinkled and scarred and mangled like something had taken the skin and ripped it right off.

She wore gloves after that.

…

Right before she turned seven-years-old, she decided she wanted to know how to fly.

Of course, this was improbable and impossible. Flying was for birds, and she was not a bird, but she liked to pretend she was. Liked to climb to the highest point in the mansion and spread her ~~arms~~ wings and fly.

The only solution for not-flying was to drive, and although she was six years old, she decided to build a motorbike, like the one Howard drove.

She managed to create a V8 motorbike engine and spent her spring days covered in grease and muck and bruises from (fists fists fists) bumping up against tools.

“Jarvis, look!” she cried with glee, and Jarvis smiled and took a quick picture and ruffled her hair and told her how proud he was of her.

Howard destroyed it before she could finish the entire motorbike.

“What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?” he yelled. His breath stank of blood alcohol. “So fucking _useless_.”

“I built something,” Antonia protested, her voice failing.

She was a quiet girl but was very loud in the head.

“I think it’s cool.”

“It’s _shit_ is what it is,” Howard barked, throwing an access piece against the wall. “Goddamnit, Antonia, goddamnit. I can’t wait until I finally find Steve and -”

“And what?” Antonia shouted.

She was a quiet girl but was very loud in the head.

This was her 82nd mistake.

“What are you going to do then? Make him the son you never had? I’m sorry, Howard. I’m sorry I’m not -”

She wasn’t prepared for the blows that followed. Looking back, she knew she should’ve been.

She should’ve been prepared for the kicks to her ribs. She should’ve been prepared for the fingers wrapped around her neck. She should’ve been prepared for the slaps and the punch to the face.

“I’m sending you to fucking boarding school so you can get the fuck out of my face,” Howard shouted. He was all sharp knives and sharper words.

Antonia was a quiet girl but was very loud in the head.

She was thick black curls and amber eyes (like the blood alcohol) and a very loud, very peculiar mind. She dreamed of flying and dreamed of love, although she didn’t really know what it meant. She dreamed of grease and flowers and dreamed in music, dreamed in loud songs that made her _feel_.

She dreamed of him being proud.

She dreamed of her being loved.

After all, Antonia means praiseworthy, means beautiful.

But Antonia wasn’t beautiful.

No, not at all.


	2. chapter two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> toni goes to boarding school, discovers love, and learns a valuable lesson.

It was quite strange, being away from the mansion. Being away from Maria, from Howard, from Jarvis. When her teachers got mad, they wouldn’t hurt, hit, scream. They would sigh in disappointment and lecture them on the right things and how to do them the right way and Antonia absolutely _hated_ it because it sounded like _Maria._

There were rules - oh so many rules, and she could barely take it. They ran on a schedule: up at 7:00, first class at 8:15, lunch at 11:30, the day ends at 3:00, dinner at 6:30, lights out at 8:00. Of course, Antonia was of the younger students and had a bedtime four hours earlier than what she was used to at the mansion. Everything was so tight-knit and it was so hard to _breathe_ and there was no _Jarvis._

Jarvis.

Kind and beautiful Jarvis.

Her protector.

No more late night talks, no more tools pressed in her hands. No more fairy tales told when she couldn’t sleep, tales of princesses who saved themselves from kings who wanted nothing to do with them, princesses who befriended dragons and taught them to be kind. Jarvis was kind, she knew. Kind like she never could be. Kind like Howard or Maria never could be.

They didn’t have phones there, at that wretched place for wretched little girls who had to be sent away from home. No way to call him, no way for him to call her.  It was hard to be loud, at that wretched place, and she was forced to be quieter than before.

She didn’t have her tools either and she went to sleep missing something, missing a part of her, something that ripped out of her chest - like her heart, but deeper, more meaningful, more _meaning. Her_ meaning. She was missing _herself_.

It was all very… hard, being there. No more screams, no more blows or punches. She was relieved, in a way, but it was as if her normal had been torn from her mind.

She was alone, alone, alone, alone, and more mistakes were piling up along her way.

Then she met Jordan Casey.

Jordan Casey was all sleek blonde hair, eyes so green it hurt to look at them, crooked teeth and a cracked laugh. She was all long arms and dirt-under-nails and hugs that seemed to choke Antonia. Jordan Casey was her moon and she was her stars and she was the missing screw in her heart. She was her wings. And she was loud, she was loud, she was _loud._

Antonia wondered if this was love.

She hoped so.

With Jarvis, their love was something fierce, something unbreaking, something she hoped was like a father-daughter love. Afterall, he was her protector.

But it wasn’t real.

And Jordan Casey… Jordan Casey taught Antonia how to be _loud._ How to be undeniably loud and brilliant and marvelous and beautiful -

“I don’t like the name Antonia,” Jordan Casey said one day. They were laying on a hill beneath a tree, staring up at the sky while children played in the field below them, hands intertwined. Antonia’s lacy white gloves Maria gave her were getting dirty, but she didn’t care. “It doesn’t suit you. It’s too pent-up and worried. Something for someone who’s not you. Someone regal and nice and all pretty-like.”

“Am I not pretty-like?” Antonia said, sounding hurt.

“You’re beautiful,” Jordan Casey told her, “And I think that’s different than being pretty-like. Being beautiful is being strong.’

“I’m not beautiful,” Antonia said sadly. She heard Jordan Casey shrug in the grass.

“Oh well. I think you are. I hope you’ll see so one day.”

“What do you think my name should be, then?” Antonia asked the girl, asked her Jordan Casey. She thought for a moment or two.

“Toni,” she finally decided. “Toni is a beautiful name, and beautiful is strength.”

“You’re beautiful,” Antonia - Toni, yes, that was her name now - told Jordan Casey. Her beautiful girl.

“I know,” said Jordan Casey.

“I love you,” Toni told Jordan Casey.

“I know,” said Jordan Casey.

Then,

“I love you too.”

Toni beamed up at the clouds.

Things got brighter with Jordan Casey. Toni was _loud_. She was loud and she liked it. Her teachers, however, did not.

“I oughta call your father and tell ‘im about this,” shouted their English teacher Ellen Castelle, when she and Jordan Casey drew a hilariously funny picture of her on the window in the kind of marker that refused to come off. Toni added ‘shit’ to it and drew a line pointing to a pile of shit beside the teacher.

Something that Toni identified as a strike of fear hit her heart and she dragged Jordan Casey away (laughing her cracked laugh) and said, “I’m going to get into really bad trouble if she tells him, Jordan Casey. I think we should apologize.”

“Get back in here!” shouted Ellen Castelle.

Jordan Casey shook her head and grinned that crooked-teeth grin. “No she won’t,” her love answered and gave Toni a quick peck on the cheek. “All the people who take picture of your daddy and your mommy and you will find out about it and your daddy will get in trouble because of you. It’ll be bad. You know, because of everyone knowing about him.”

Tori trusted Jordan Casey, although her answer didn’t really make sense. Trusting her - it’d never been a mistake before.

“Antonia Stark! Jordan Casey! Get back in here!” Ellen Castelle shouted again, and the two little girls laughed and ran down the hall, hand-in-hand.

Visiting day came and gone, and not even Jarvis was able to visit her. He explained in a letter that Howard would not let him, saying that she must toughen up and learn to live on her own. He was terribly sorry. So, so sorry.

The school was a wretched place for wretched little girls who had to be sent away from home.

But she had Jordan Casey, and they would spend their free time together holding hands and running around and lying down on top of that hill, the one with the tree on top, the one that overlooked the children playing in the field below. They would talk and Jordan Casey would call Toni beautiful and Toni would talk about _whatever_ with Jordan Casey and Jordan Casey would _listen_ and Toni never had that with anyone save for Jarvis. They were in love, undeniably in love. They were something that couldn’t be broken.

“I’m in love,” Toni said in her letter to Jarvis, her handwriting choppy and scrawled across the page, not bothering with the lines. It had its own beauty to it, though. Toni would deny it if you told her. “With a girl named Jordan Casey. She’s the most wondrous and most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. And we’re in love. Also, I go by Toni now bye I miss you I’ll see you in the summer bye Jarvis bye.”

A week later Jordan Casey told Toni to come to the hill with her, even though it was raining. But Toni wasn’t afraid to get her hair wet, and neither was Jordan Casey. That was another thing she loved about her. They both loved the rain.

They laid down together again, hand-in-hand, in silence, staring up at the darkened clouds and letting the rain fall on their faces.

“Why do you wear gloves all the time?” Jordan Casey asked. “I wish I could feel your hands.”

Toni showed her.

She pulled the gloves off and let them fall into the mud and showed her, showed her love, the burns and the scars and the memories all pent-up beneath those lacy white gloves.

Jordan Casey took one look and pressed a kiss to each palm, then they laid back down again and continued to stare back up at the clouds.

“I love you,” Toni told her. Told her Jordan Casey. _You’re so beautiful._

“I know,” Jordan Casey said.

Then,

“I love you too.”

Then,

“You’re beautiful.”

Toni shook her head in a way that Jordan Casey couldn’t see.

_No. You’re beautiful._

Then,

“I’m going back to my home.”

Toni felt something in her freeze.

“What?”

Jordan Casey closed her eyes, closed her green green eyes and suddenly Toni was afraid that was the last time she would look into those eyes.

“Your daddy doesn’t like us together.”

“But I love you,” Toni protested, as if it would solve anything. Toni knew that it would.

94th mistake.

“Those people,” Jordan Casey said, “Those people who take pictures of you and your daddy and your mommy and report on your lives, your daddy’s afraid they’re going to find out.”

“This is like those fairy tales Jarvis tells me,” Toni said, oddly eagerly. “And we’re the princesses and they’re trying to keep us apart but we won’t let them because we’re so much in love -”

“No, it’s not,” Jordan Casey said, and stood up and walked down the hill and Toni never saw those green green eyes again.

She was alone.

Jordan Casey made her loud. Freed the noises from her head.

She made her know love.

Toni missed what it was like to know love.

…

Years passed, but the image of Jordan Casey never faded from Toni’s mind. She was loud now, and she knew it, and Howard knew it, and Maria knew it, and Jarvis knew it, and Howard _hated it._

She had made 337 mistakes in her lifetime and the number continued to grow as he soul got brighter and her mind got louder and her quietness faded away.

She refused to return to that wretched place for wretched little girls who had to be sent away from home. She _refused_ to. She grew so loud that night of fated protest, screaming and shrieking it took five punches to the head to knock her out and three weeks for her to fully heal from the concussion.

“Two black eyes this time, miss,” Jarvis mused, though his voice was hardly playful. Toni shot him a grin that resembled the late Jordan Casey.

“I know. Breaking a record, eh?”

“You’ve gotten double black eyes before, miss.”

“Yeah, but this one comes with a concussion so bad I can’t look into the light and a broken nose. Last time it was only the concussion.”

_I’m so depressing,_ she thought.

“Don’t remind me,” she heard Jarvis mutter, rubbing ointment onto a cut that had recently opened. She hissed at the sharp pain - ironic, how she sometimes had more of a reaction to the stinging medicine than the wound itself.

She stood up from her bed and stretched her back, letting her curls fall loose off her shoulders. She was eleven, now, and was made of scars and anger and snark and teeth. She was made of her new favorite color, _red,_ the color of blood and the color of her heart, and she was made of the words the press came up with. She was made of loud music that made her _feel_ and long-lost love and aching memories and was made of a shield. She was made of a bitter longing for Captain America and a bitter resent towards herself for thinking that.

“Ice cream, Jarvis?”

“My pleasure, miss. Where do you want to go today?”

Toni hummed, wandering around her penthouse-of-a-room, her mind thinking thinking thinking.

“That place downtown, the one with the hanging birds over the door. Remember?”

“I do, miss. Though, thinking about it, I recommend we stay here, due to your injuries and -”

_“Please,_ Jarvis,” Toni said ever-so-flirtatiously, we have makeup, do we not? And sunglasses, and _gloves,_ and -”

“I get the point, miss,” said Jarvis with a sigh. She glanced at the old man and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, and he understood.

She sat directly behind Jarvis in the limo, as usual. Normally it would be their chauffeur driving them but Toni refused to have anyone drive but Jarvis. There was a special trust between them, an unbreakable trust that resembled their unbreakable love (that wasn’t _real_ love, not like the love she had loved with Jordan Casey).

“Have you ever loved anyone, Jarvis?” she asked quietly.

She was a fairly loud girl with a louder mind but she was feeling quiet. She’d been feeling particularly quiet for a long while now and she was afraid.

She was afraid.

“Well,” Jarvis said, and Toni hung onto his accent, breathing it in - “I love my wife, Ana, and I love you.”

“But our love is not real love,” she said, shaking her head. “You know it’s not.”

_I’m a burden,_ she thought.

_But I am your protector,_ he thought.

_But you are my protector,_ she thought. _I thank you for that._

The paparazzi were there when they arrived at the little ice cream shop with birds hanging over the door.

“Antonia, how do you fix your hair like that -”

“Antonia, what’s it like being the daughter of -”

“Antonia, are you expected to take over Stark In-”

“Antonia,”

“Antonia,”

“Antonia,”

“Antonia,”

“Block the doors,” Jarvis orders her security team as the paparazzi with the flashing cameras and the flashier grins and the blinding, blinding lights, so bright she wanted to _burst_ -

“It’s okay, J,” Toni said softly. “They’re not even allowed to come in, remember? Besides, people want their ice cream.”

Toni liked the woman behind the counter. She liked their ice cream, thick and rich and real. She liked the smell of the place, liked the shadows of birds on the tiled floor.

“Thank you,” she would say, and they would say it back, and they would set her ice cream down on the marble and she would pick it up herself because she didn’t like being handed things.

She learned languages, and she learned them fast. She learned the language of her heritage, Italian, first. Maria often spoke it around the house, annoying Howard and intriguing Toni. She learned it on her own time, when she was alone in her own corner of the world, when Jarvis was away and Howard was screaming somewhere else and Maria was knitting pretty pink gloves.

Soon, she was speaking it like it was her first language.

Bulgarian was next. It was in the Southern branch of the Slavic language family, which led her to Russian later on. Bulgarian’s all rolling tongues and quick words and a smoothness she couldn’t quite place. Her accent was bordering on Russian (a sin, she knew, for the two accents were completely different) and often found herself muttering along in Bulgarian or Italian or Russian. It was easier, she discovered, speaking in something unknown to those who refuse to learn. She could breathe in Bulgarian, breathe in Russian, breathe in Italian or French or German. She could _breathe._

Language was the type of beauty she longed to understand. Language was the type of beauty that made her remember the green of Jordan Casey’s eyes.

…

She wanted to know hate with Obadiah Stane.

She wanted to know and to feel _hate_ with Obadiah Stane. ‘Obie,’ her father would call him, and she would begin to as well. Uncle Obie. She liked to curse at him in Bulgarian, but only when he or Howard wasn’t around.

Uncle Obie liked to grab her arm and make her show him little projects she would be working on. The scent of his breath (not blood alcohol, no, but something pungent and ugly), the feel of it against her ear stayed with her for a long, long time. She didn’t bother covering up her bruises or blood with him around, because he didn’t fucking care.

“You might be going somewhere, girl,” he started to say after she built her seventeen circuit board of her lifetime. Howard snorted.

“Don’t encourage her,” he warned, but something changed.

She was now public.

Her genius self was for the world to see.

At press conferences, at photo shoots, he would hold her just a little too tight or speak to her a little too harshly or hit her a little too hard afterwards, and she was twelve now, she was a good girl, she was a good girl, she was his good girl, she was _his good little girl don’t you ever embarrass me like that again you fucking pest I’ll fucking kill you -_

She was a good girl, and good girls didn’t cry in the darkness of their room. She was a good girl, and good girls didn’t miss the flash of green green eyes late at night. She was a good girl, and good girls didn’t listen to fairy tales when they couldn’t sleep, tales of princesses who saved themselves from kings who wanted nothing to do with them, princesses who befriended dragons and taught them to be kind. She was a good girl, and she would put up with the hits, she was a good girl, and she would speak when spoken to, she was a good girl, and she would cover the memories up with concealer, she was a good girl, and she would do what her father told her, she was a good girl, and she promised to help find Steve Rogers (Captain Fucking America), she was a good girl, and no:

she wasn’t beautiful.

…

But one night, being daddy’s good girl wasn’t enough to stop him.

It was a bad night, she knew.

She made a mistake going downstairs for a glass of water.

It was her 456th mistake in her lifetime.

Maybe 457th, she wasn’t sure.

458?

And one night, being daddy’s good girl wasn’t enough to hide the sight of a black work boot coming down on her face.

And one night, being daddy’s good girl wasn’t enough to silence the screams.

And one night, being daddy’s good girl wasn’t enough to halt the fists aiming for her cheeks, her head, her eyes, her stomach.

And one night, being daddy’s good girl wasn’t enough to catch the bottle before it smashed into her shoulder.

And one night, being daddy’s good girl wasn’t enough to stop daddy from slamming her against a concrete wall over and over and over and _over and over and over_ again until a Captain America portrait fell and broke before she did.

Because being daddy’s good girl meant that she couldn’t break.

Understand?

…

“Sir, _enough!”_

Through a haze of blackened red, Toni could make up the somewhat-hunched over form of an old man, all wrinkled skin and gray hair and eyes that gleamed with laughter. She liked him, this beautiful man. He put ointment on bruises and band-aids on cuts. He told her fairytales when she couldn’t sleep, tales of princesses who saved themselves from kings who wanted nothing to do with them, princesses who befriended dragons and taught them to be kind. Jarvis was kind, she knew.

_No._

“Get off of her!” Jarvis shouted, pulling Howard away from Toni’s near-limp body. “She is a child, a girl, _twelve-years-old._ I have had enough of this, I am going to the police! You, sir, are a _monster._ ”

_No, Jarvis, no._

She wondered if Jarvis had ever made a mistake in his lifetime.

“Excuse me?” Howard growled, stepping forward. There was blood on his black work boots.

Toni wanted to sleep.

“I am going to the police,” Jarvis said again.

_My protector._

“You are a monster.”

Howard let out a chuckle, one that made Toni want to scream, scream and scream and scream (for what? For green, green eyes and a cracked laugh? For fairy tales and stars and birds hanging under doorways? For the protector she failed protecting?).

“Let’s have a talk, Edwin,” he whispered.

Toni never again heard fairy tales told when she couldn’t sleep, tales of princesses who saved themselves from kings who wanted nothing to do with them, princesses who befriended dragons and taught them to be kind. Jarvis was kind, she knew.

Was.

Was.

Was.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, first in English, then in Italian, then in Bulgarian, then in Russian, then in French, then in Germany, and her voice was broken, her accent was broken, her language was broken, she was broken.

Except being daddy’s good girl meant that she couldn’t break.

And she was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love and appreciate every kudos, comment, and bookmark! your words mean so much to me. thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed! please leave a comment down below and have a wonderful day.


	3. chapter three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> toni goes to school, meets rhodey, breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first, i just want to say thank you so much to everyone who commented! i'm sorry i haven't answered all of them, but know that i read every single one and they've all made me smile! comments truly inspire me to continue with this story, despite the fact that i'm so excited to share the upcoming chapters with you.  
> ...  
> trigger warning: attempted sexual assault in this chapter. not graphic, but i added a trigger warning nonetheless.

She was a new image, this Stark. Someone new for the press to exploit, someone new for the gossipers to rant about, someone new to the Stark Legacy. Someone new in the search for Captain America. She was new, she was new, she was born again after the fateful events that night. 

Sometimes, on rare nights, she would still dream of Jarvis and his voice, of Jordan Casey and her voice. Sometimes, on rare nights, she would climb up to the highest point in the mansion and stare out at those stars, at those wondrous stars, and she would spread her  ~~ arms ~~ wings and  _ fly. _

Sometimes, on rare nights, the noises, the loudness in her head would dim, and she could breathe a little better. 

A little. 

She graduated from high school at age fourteen, when she was all black curls and gold eyeshadow and black sunglasses and brown work boots. She didn’t even send in an application before acceptance letters poured in from universities around the country, around the world. She saw a letter from the Technical University in Sofia, Bulgaria, in the trash. 

No culture for her then. 

That was fine.

She had her Thai food and her languages to keep her company. 

“да продухаш тръбите,*” she muttered, grabbing a rag and wiping down the old pipes Howard kept in the storage closet. “ Говард будет.*”

She spent her days converting as many spare rooms into workshops. She worked, she worked, oh she worked throughout the hot New York summer. She pushed past heartache and regret (no time, no time) and let her loudness get all caged up in her mind (like an animal, like Obie) and let it spill out from her lips in the form of Black Sabbath and The Clash and Queen songs.

At fifteen, right before she would enter MIT on a full-scholarship (not that she needed it), she was all pinned-up hair and dark crimson lipstick, the kind that matched Aunt Peggy’s lipstick (she was a carefree soul who never stuck around for long and made Toni yearn for a kind of life she didn’t understand), all tan, creamy skin and a broken soul and powerful mind. She was all snark and all sass, flicking fingers and a pace that made the press struggle to keep up. She was all hands shoved in pipes, fingers twiddling little screws and bolts, all screaming noise silenced with a pair of earbuds. She was Antonia Boyana Stark. Stay the fuck out of her way.

(523 mistakes so far.)

… 

She had a private room in MIT. Not that she cared, not that she wanted someone to stay with her, to sleep in the bed opposite, to stay up late exchanging stories (fairy tales?) and to go to breakfast and lunch and dinner together and to study together. 

Not like she cared. 

Howard didn’t think it was the best, letting her have a dorm mate. Perhaps he was afraid (she was afraid, so so afraid) that she would tell someone (about what, Howard? she would ask quizzingly, and he would shout at her and she would escape to her favorite workshop, the one at the highest point in the mansion with the glass ceiling, the one where she could look up and  _ fly), _ or she would get too close, or the press would hear about it and she would mess something up. 

Not like she cared that she was alone. 

Didn’t matter.

She packed her own bags, feeling to selfish if she let the housekeepers do it. They were made primarily of knick-knacks and tools (she refused to go to another school without her tools), with the occasional graphic tee, cargo pants, ripped jeans and even more ripped shorts. 

Howard gave her a parting gift.

It was a copy of the map he had hanging up in his Captain America man-cave. The pins were already in place.

“You continue the search, Antonia,” he said, one hand on her shoulder, the other around a beer bottle. Not the blood alcohol. She wondered if he was trying to be a little nicer. 

Nice is not kind. 

“Okay? Obie and I, and you, Antonia, we’re gonna find him. Captain America.”

_ Captain Fucking America,  _ she thought.

“My name is Toni,” she deadpanned. 524th mistake. Howard groaned and slapped the back of her neck. 

“Get the fuck to school, kid. I’ve got work to do.”

“So do I,” she muttered. 

She took a train to Massachusetts, then a taxi and hopped off a few times to get the press off her trail. Of course, they already knew she was going to MIT. Sooner or later, the campus would be swarmed. 

She had her hair hid under a dark gray beanie and scratched her lipstick and gold eyeshadow to be more discreet, going with the look she went with while alone at the mansion. Jeans, Metallica sweatshirt, calloused and scarred hands under soft fabric gloves.

She thanked the driver when she arrived for the fifteen-minute drive and handed him a $100 bill. “Keep the change.”

“You are so kind,” the man praised her. “And very beautiful.”

Toni smiled a wistful smile. 

“No,” she said, “I just liked your story.”

“H-how can I repay you?”

“Tell your story to others.”

… 

She lived in Baker House, and because there was no option for singles (and she had gotten a quad-person room), she went to work converting the extra space into a workshop. Really, she only needed a bed for herself, and when did she even ever sleep?

She had a microwave and a small fridge and three cabinets stuffed with junk and candy. And she was alone, she was alone, and Jarvis was gone, and people were yelling in the hall, and she couldn’t tell if it was because it was move-in day or because they found out Antonia Boyana Stark was there, and Jarvis was gone, and she was alone, and he was gone he was gone he was gone and she would never see those green green eyes again.

She got drunk that night, for her first time. Her 525th mistake.

Everyone was at least three years older than her but she looked just as mature, just as ready to take on the world one chug at a time. She let her hair down, a rare occasion, and put on a short and tight black dress that made her feel a little too exposed.

She liked the way alcohol made her feel. (Mistake.) Liked the way it calmed the noise, the loudness, liked the feel of it sliding down her throat. But she was afraid, afraid she would go a little too far, afraid she wouldn’t be able to see the way out, but she was too drunk to care, and she swayed to the music and was too drunk to fully register the hands wandering her body. (Mistake mistake mistake.)

“God, you’re sexy,” she heard someone groan. She didn’t like the tone of his voice, didn’t like how close he was to her, didn’t like - (was sexy better than beautiful, or was it just for pretty-like girls?)

“Have a drink, beautiful,” the boy murmured. (Mistake.) It was hard to hear anything in that music, in that club, but she heard  _ him _ perfectly. 

“I don’t like being handed things,” she said, and she also didn’t like the way her words slurred together in a way that was a little too similar to Howard’s.

Someone grabbed her ass and tugged on her hair and suddenly she didn’t want to dance anymore, suddenly all the noise was just a bit too much, suddenly she felt the cool outside air and someone tugging on her arm. 

Someone, someone. 

She was alone, all alone in the dark night. (Mistake.)

“Please stop,” she whined as the hands continued roaming her body, as fingers found crevices and swells and dips in her curves, as they clawed at her breaths and she felt a mouth against her neck. 

“Stop,” she said again, maybe a little louder, a little softer. “Stop.”

Fingers wrapped around her throat.

_ No, no, no. _

“Come on, don’t be such a tease,” the boy murmured and she could feel him grin against her skin. He ripped the sleeve of her dress and was trying to tug it off. 

Was that the sound of a camera going off? 

“Stop,” she repeated, “stop it. No, get off of me. Get off of me!”

With a wave of adrenaline and fear and kneed the boy in the crotch and ran, she ran, she ran barefoot and wild and free and she was  _ afraid,  _ but he was  _ gone  _ the hands were  _ gone  _ she could  _ breathe.  _

“You fucking slut!” he screamed behind her, but the voice was growing farther away. “You fucking tease! Whore! God, I thought at least  _ Antonia Fucking Stark  _ would  _ want  _ it!”

She ran. 

Alone, in the dark, alone and afraid.

She lost track of how many mistakes she made and would count them up later.

… 

Baker House was silent and empty, and the hall light was off. 

She couldn’t find her key in the dark blackness, in the shadows of her hands fumbling around her purse. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whimpered, sliding down her door. The hallway was so narrow her feet almost touched the opposite wall. She was crying (was she crying?) and her neck ached and everything ached and she could still feel his hands on her, could still feel his mouth against her skin, against her lips, fighting back her breath.

“Jesus, are you okay?”

She looked to the side, where a black man stood, hands stuffed in pockets and shoulders somewhat hunched. 

“Um, are you locked out? Here, lemme get the lights.”

_ Thank you. _

She heard in an audible gasp as he took her in: all tangled, messy hair, ripped sleeves and bra half-tugged off, a girl made of red scratched into her skin, concealer kind of rubbed off and revealing scars (damnit), lipstick smudged onto her cheek and eyeliner messy from tears. 

“Oh, Christ. Oh, fuck,” she heard the black man say, and ran up to her, kneeling to her level. “Um, are you okay? Did he - do you need to go to the police or the hospital, or -”

“He didn’t,” she whispered. Did her voice even come out? She was quiet, oh so quiet. “He almost, but he didn’t. I kicked him.”

She vaguely remembered him slamming her against a brick wall and thought of an English essay she had to write a long time ago, in high school, about parallels between two points in her life. 

“Good, good,” the man breathed out. “Um, my name is James. James Rhodes. Do you have your key to your room? I-is this your room?”

“I don’t have my key,” she drawled out mournfully. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I would hug you, but I don’t think that’d be the best -”

“Please don’t touch me,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Of course,” he murmured. “I think we might have to just kick your door open. You have a shower?”

She nodded. 

She wondered if he knew who she was.

She wondered if he was just in it for the money. 

She wondered if he would tell her a story. 

She cringed as she saw the boot fly up and smash the door in - thankfully, dorm doors were not thick and durable like they were at the mansion. 

“Sorry,” the man - James, James Rhodey - said. 

“Спасибо,” she faltered. “Thank you.”

“You speak Russian?” James asked with a feeble chuckle. She motioned to help her up but she shook her head and grabbed onto the door frame for support. 

“I guess. Not really. You?”

“English for me,” he remarked. Another chuckle. She liked his laugh. “Christ, how old are you?”

“Fifteen,” she mumbled. 

“Wh -”

“I'm a Stark,” she added, clenching her fist and limping into her room without another glance at James. 

Pause. 

Then,

“Oh.”

He stayed her until she was out of the shower (thirty-minute shower), her scalp sore from scrubbing and her arms and legs red from the scalding hot water. She threw on pajamas before she went out again - clothing to hide the memories and the pain. And her gloves, of course. 

“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” he hesitated. 

_ Do you want to stay with me tonight?  _ she asked. In her head, of course. 

“It’s okay,” she croaked. “You can go. Um, thank you.”

She crawled into her bed and wrapped the blankets around her, staring at him as he slowly backed out.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. Like it solved everything. Like it wiped away the memories, the feeling. She supposed it did. 

“I know.”

He moved to turn the light off but she shook her head wildly and he halted, fingers on the switch. 

“Light on,” she said. Her voice was so feeble, so quiet, and her head was quiet and that was a very unusual circumstance because usually, at least  _ one  _ part of her was loud, loud, loud. But she wasn’t. She was quiet all around, and it kind of hurt. 

Kind of.

“Okay,” he said. “Sorry about your door. I’ll help you fix it later, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, you wanna… get breakfast tomorrow? If you’re up to it.”

She smiled. 

She smiled. 

“Yes, please.”

He said goodnight and somewhat closed the door, but she didn’t go to sleep. Her mind was tired, and her body was tired, but she didn’t sleep. 

… 

She didn’t want to move the next morning. Didn’t want to breathe for fear  _ he  _ (he, he, the boy without a name, the boy without a face, only a voice so smooth she wanted to choke) would find her. Somehow. She didn’t really like how her door was barely hanging on, just barely latched after its beating the night prior. She was afraid -

But then  _ James  _ was there in her doorway, slowly knocking, asking if she wanted to get some waffles and - in the nicer light, Toni decided that James didn’t fit him. He was Rhodey, he was Rhodes, he was hers. 

It was the start of a beautiful friendship, and Toni didn’t deny it. 

The press loved it and ate it up the same way the two of them ate up the specialty fries in the cafeteria. 

“You’re gonna be great, Toni,” Rhodey would tell her. “So fucking great.”

The first time he called her beautiful she corrected him and he never did it again. 

Oh, and the headlines. 

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark drunk her first night at college! _

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark - sex with stranger outside pub?!?  _ and a picture of her being pressed up against the wall with the boy’s face buried in her neck, her hair, while Toni’s eyes were closed and her mouth open as if in ecstasy.

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark with a new man?? Read all about it!  _ and a picture of her and Rhodey, hand-in-hand, walking down the sidewalk. 

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark too much to handle? Find out what  _ Howard Stark  _ says  _

_ about it! _

She wanted to laugh at the last one. He would call her a slut, a whore, a prostitute and a disgrace if she ever went home. 

She didn’t need to go home for him to say it, she realized, all she needed was a phone. 

With Rhodey at her side, she knew that she would be great.  _ They  _ would be great. 

(The Captain America map remained in a box, tucked away in the closet.)

Classes were boring; Jarvis had already taught her most, and as a child, her reading material consisted of building manuals and textbooks on design. She was better than them, she knew. They knew, too. See, most didn’t take lightly to a fifteen-year-old girl (a  _ Stark _ ) being ahead of them in classes. 

In 1984, women made up 29% of the admitted class of 1988, so one would understand the ratio of men to women at that time. 

But still, Toni pushed through. 

She was brilliant and brilliance came with a price. Suddenly, people began to wonder if she  _ was  _ going to inherit Stark Industries. 

“Please,” she said when Rhodey asked her about it, “Why wouldn’t I? My father doesn’t think I have the capability. Obie doesn’t either. The world doesn't. My father’s business partners don’t. Why shouldn’t I?”

“So you’re gonna do it out of spite?” mused Rhodey. Toni threw back her head and laughed, threw it back the way she does, laughed the way she does. 

“Oh, Rhodey,” was all she said and gave him a kiss on the forehead. 

James Rhodes. He was kind, and he was beautiful and he was  _ hers. _ He was her protector now, and though Jarvis was gone his soul was not, and she believed that perhaps his soul now rested in the heart of James Rhodes. 

“Jim,” she would say with extravagance, throwing her body against his lap and letting him play with her hair.

“Baby girl,” he would say back with a smile. 

God, she loved him. 

But she loved those green green eyes more. 

Sometimes she worried if she was too much for Rhodey. In college, she was always in the spotlight, whether it be in academics or in tabloids. She worried that Rhodey didn’t like how the public viewed them as a couple (the two of them laughed at their expense), or how Rhodey was constantly fretting over her safety as if it was his responsibility. She worried that the flashing lights of cameras were poisoning his brain, worried that the constant praise from professors and the constant medals she received was too much for him. Hell, it was too much for her. 

And then she met Alana Clarke. 

(557th mistake.)

Alana was going to be an architect. She was all long legs, legs longer than Toni’s, and tan, tan skin and sunset pink locks that fell just at the jawline and curled around her ears. Alana was spunk, and she was power, and she was love-bites and glossy lipstick and pink hair and overalls. Alana was love, and she was life, and she was giving. 

Toni liked to believe that they fell in love as soon as they laid eyes on each other. (559th mistake.)

Toni liked the way Alana made her feel, liked the touch of her hands on her body, a touch so soft and so calming it dominated the lasting memories of a late night behind a pub. She liked the feel of Alana’s lips against hers, liked the way Alana’s pink hair felt through her fingertips. 

They would lie on the grass together in the dead of night (Jordan Casey Jordan Casey Jordan Casey Jordan Casey), and they wouldn’t talk, but they would stare at the stars together, and Toni liked that. Yes, Alana Clarke was no Jordan Casey, she was no green green set of eyes, but she was  _ something.  _ Alana was love, and she was life, and she was giving. 

The public loved it. 

It wasn’t officially called GRID anymore, but many still used the name. Toni was a dyke, she was a fag, she was a tease and a ruin to the Stark name, but Alana just  _ loved  _ the attention. While Toni always wondered about Rhodes, she never thought for one second that Alana couldn’t handle what came with being affiliated with a  _ Stark. _

They got their first tattoo together, then their second, then their third. They were underage, sure, but Toni had money. 

She was a  _ Stark _ , after all. She could buy anything. 

She had a small bouquet of wildflowers right next to her heel, the petals colored in a dusty pink to match Alana’s hair. 

She had a flock of birds on her shoulder blade, small but fierce, and they were flying away - flying away. 

She had a patch of stars on her wrist, accompanied by a ringed planet. 

God, she loved Alana.

Alana loved her. 

(Did she?)

Until Toni felt the kiss on her temple and saw the flick of money snatched from her pocket. 

Until Toni found the checks in Alana’s purse from one of the biggest tabloid companies. 

Until Toni - 

Until Toni -

Until Alana left her, a few hundred thousand bucks in her account, left her for a man with dark eyes and a dark soul. 

Alana was Toni’s mistake.

… 

She was with Rhodey the night after another tabloid came out, this time one about her split from Alana - and her phone rang. 

HOWARD STARK was the caller.

“I’ll ring back later,” Toni said dismissively. Rhodey raised his eyebrows. 

“Baby girl, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“Jim,” she said extravagantly, draping herself over his lap. 

“Baby girl,” Rhodey glared, his voice somewhat warning. Toni sighed and flipped the phone open.  

“Da?” she asked, sweetly enough. She almost has to hold the phone away from her ear to clearly hear the screams. 

_ “Fucking hell, Antonia, what the fuck are you thinking? First, you fuck a guy your first night here, then you fucked some  _ girl _ \- what are you, a fag? Whatever the fuck you are, you’re ruining my name. You’re ruining my legacy. It’s bad enough you’re a gi - at least you’re doing well at MIT, at least you’re at least making shit that’s  _ useless, _ yes, but goddamnit, Antonia, I swear the God when you get home, when I get my hands on you I’m going to fucking -”  _ he paused, exchanged some hushed words with someone who had entered the room, then returned to the phone.  _ “Be a good girl, Antonia. Can you do that? Just be a good girl. Daddy’s good girl.” _

She clicked ‘end.’ 

“Well,” she said after a moment, and let out a quick sigh.  _ Tell me a story, Rhodey.  _ “Let’s turn on the tv, Rhodes, let’s see what’s on.”

“Toni,” Rhodey said gently, but she rolled off his lap and sat against the back of the couch, turning the lights off and the tv on. 

He couldn’t see her shake. 

… 

Toni was alone for Christmas Break. 

Rhodey had to go back home to his family, and though Toni was bitter she refused to come with him (“It’s a  _ family  _ holiday, Rhodey, you have to be with your  _ family. _ Not me.”

“Alright then, baby girl. Merry Christmas.)

Baker House was quiet. Almost everyone was gone, save for the occasional goody-two-shoes who wanted to stay over for extra credit. Maria tried to get her to come back but Toni made the excuse of having too much work to do. 

“Sorry, Maria, but I’m just swamped. MIT living, you know? Sorry, but you can send my gifts over if you’d like.”

“I’d wish you’d call me ‘mother’, dear,” said Maria. Toni hung up. 

She broke into Rhodey’s dorm on more than one occasion to wrap herself in his sheets, in his leftover clothes, so that she could smell his scent and be reminded of his beauty. 

_ I love you, _ she thought. 

She immersed herself in building and coding and everything in between. She realized, with pain, how terribly slow the Stark Phones were. Yes, it was new age technology, but  _ still  _ \- it was so incredibly boring. You flip it up, you hit the buttons, you call someone. There was no jazz, no fun to it. The design was plain and the screens broke too easily (she had broken at least 16 in heated fits when she would throw them against the wall). Stark Industries focused on weaponry (such boring designs, like everything else), not technology. 

When Toni took over, she would conquer both and everything in between. 

_ Start with the small stuff,  _ she told herself, her hair smelling of Rhodey’s cologne. 

The entire break her life consisted of grease, cargo pants and dirty tank tops and messy up-dos, work gloves and wrenches, screws and screens and circuit boards and blueprints. She designed a better, more portable phone, one where you didn’t have to flip it open to call, one with more functions then punching some buttons and ringing someone up. It was light and sleek and the screen was of the most durable material she could find. She designed a new type of sniper gun, equipped with a special silencer that muffled all sounds and a function that made it able to collapse to be small enough to fit in a handbag. 

She designed something that could be slipped on like a glove but had weaponized technology in the palm, something that could shoot - bullets, maybe? Sound waves? She’d been experimenting with that type of technology but it resulted in a couple burst eardrums of people on the lawn outside. 

Maybe a shield? Perhaps she could fit a collapsible shield into the gauntlet-glove, and when activated could -

(Captain America Captain America Captain America Captain  _ Fucking  _ America.)

Christmas Day. 

She got three packages and a letter. One from Maria, one from Rhodey, and one from Obie. She tossed the letter for later. 

Maria gave her a box of dainty, lacy gloves that reminded Toni of the ones she slipped off so that Jordan Casey could see the memories pent-up beneath the fabric. Rhodey gave her a knitted sweater with a botched version of her face on it. She chortled and threw it on over the grease-smeared tank. 

Obie gave her a hunk of scrap metal and told her to build the next great invention for Stark Industries. 

She could almost  _ taste  _ the sneer in his voice. 

She forgot to eat dinner, so instead of the hearty Christmas meal the cafeteria provided (runny potatoes, dried turkey, and bread - a rerun of their Thanksgiving), she went with a packet of Oreos and a McDonald’s Happy Meal. 

At 1:28 AM, she noticed the letter sitting on a pile of clothes in the corner of her room. 

At 1:29 AM, she opened it with a flick of her knife. 

_ Dear Miss Antonia Boyana Stark, _

_ It is of my deepest regrets that I am to inform you that Sir Edwin Jarvis has passed at the age of 83 in his home in York, England. Ana was by his side. Due to the majority of his friends and family residing in America, Sir Jarvis instructed for the reading of his will to take place at Peggy Carter’s residence in Los Angeles. The reading will take place on December 28th at 2:00 PM. I, Sir Jarvis’ lawyer and trusted friend William Shore, will be conducting the reading.  _

_ Thank you and Merry Christmas. _

At 1:32 AM, Antonia Boyana Stark let out a scream like no other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed! i think updates should be saturdays and wednesdays, does that work?please leave a comment down below with any suggestions or whatever you'd like. have a wonderful day!  
> ...  
> *да продухаш тръбите means “clean the pipes” in Bulgarian, Говард будет means “Howard will be home soon” in Russian. Forgive me, I’m not fluent in either language and I’m using hopefully more useful translators then Google Translate. If you have corrections, please, let me know.


	4. chapter four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a reading-of-a-will, a trip, and life at college.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the kudos, bookmarks, and comments! i'm so glad you all are enjoying 'a wretched thing'. i hope you like this new chapter. 
> 
> ... 
> 
> warning for some (period-typical) homophobic language.

Her eyes are blurred. Her mind was numb and she couldn’t  _ think,  _ she couldn’t  _ think,  _ and this had never happened to her, she was always been able to think - silent maybe, but then she would turn to her thoughts, and her thoughts were almost always so loud and they would be so comforting but now suddenly

but now 

suddenly,

everything slowed. 

She was vaguely aware of calling Rhodey. Rhodey, her kind and beautiful boy, the one who held her tight and played with her hair, the one who never let her go even when things might have been too much, Rhodey, her kind and beautiful boy - Jarvis was her protector, and Rhodey was her savior.

_ Jarvis. _

Edwin Jarvis was a beautiful man. He was all wrinkled skin and gray hair and eyes that gleamed with laughter. She liked him, this beautiful man. He put ointment on bruises and bandaids on cuts. He told her fairytales when she couldn’t sleep, tales of princesses who saved themselves from kings who wanted nothing to do with them, princesses who befriended dragons and taught them to be kind. Jarvis was kind, she knew. He was something she could not be. Something she could never be. 

“He’s gone.”

“Jarvis, Rhodey, he’s gone.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you, no, you don’t have to come, it’s going to be in Los Angeles, I can go alone, no, Rhodey, you don’t have to - oh. Okay.”

He was with her for the reading of the will. 

Jarvis, apparently, did not want her to come to the funeral, no matter how much they loved each other. Perhaps he loved her so much he didn’t want her to see him like that, all dried up, the kindness and beauty sucked out of him (he would still be so, so beautiful, she thought with fury). Asleep and never waking up. Hopefully dreaming of fairy tales. 

_ I love you,  _ she thought, and she never let it go. 

Howard almost didn’t let her go (she would’ve found a way anyways; his approval didn’t matter). Maria convinced him otherwise. 

“The press has already heard about it,” she warned, a voice the kind of softness a young child would long to hear. 

Toni never heard it. 

“Let her go, Howard.”

“Fine,” the man grumbled. His voice crackled over the phone speaker. “But two days, max. In fact, just go for the day of the reading, then come right back to school and resume your studies. Got it?”

“Yes sir,” Toni murmured. She sounded somewhat muffled. Was it her brain, or was it grief pressing down on her lips? “Thank you, sir.”

There was a pause. 

“Merry Christmas, Antonia,” he huffed. “I-I’m sorry about Jarvis.”

“I am too,” Toni whispered. “And… Merry Christmas, Howard. Dad.”

She wondered if maybe that was the kindest confrontation she had had with her father in a very long time. 

… 

Red lipstick. Gold eyeshadow. Black eyeliner. Lacy white gloves and a short and tight black dress. Brown work boots with far too many cracks and stains on them. Dark curls and shaky hands. 

Jarvis was her protector. Rhodey was her savior. 

It was hard to feel anything now.

“I think it’d be better if you go in alone,” Rhodey whispered, his words breathy. “I’ll be waiting right here.”

“Are you sure?” worried Toni. She was always worrying over Rhodey. Hopefully he worried about her just as much. He probably did.

Rhodey smiled. “Yeah. Besides, I’ve got these cheese cubes.”

Her hands struggled with buttoning up his jacket and he caught them in his own, holding them close to his chest. 

“Hey,” he said softly, “you’ll be okay. Get in there, baby girl. I love you.”

“I love you,” she told him and was ushered through the oak doors. 

Jarvis was her protector. Rhodey was her savior. 

She felt as if she lost one and was losing the other. 

No matter how much she hated thinking about it, everything with Rhodey felt  _ forced.  _ And yes, their laughing was real, and their smiles were real, and their late nights eating Thai food and her speaking in a mixture of Bulgarian, Italian and Russian was real, but he  _ saved her. _ Now… now it was as if she was paying him back. Giving him a chance in the spotlight, like what happened with Alana.

Or, or, or maybe it was he felt the need to continue saving her, to continue protecting her because Jarvis sure as hell couldn’t. Rhodey was always so rushed and so ready, so ready for anything that came his way, so ready to take on the world. He planned on going into the military, he told her one night. She was afraid she was holding onto his dream and stuffing it away for a night where she would need to be saved once more and he would have to stay. 

She was determined never to be saved by anyone else again, determined to pull herself up with her own gloved hands and her own dented tools. 

She was Antonia Boyana Stark. 

And sitting there, on that weak little chair in the weak little circle of friends and family, she felt so utterly alone. The lawyer was going through his things, muttering along as lawyers did, and most of the circle consisted of white-haired ladies and the occasional butler. There was one woman, though, who sat beside Toni with a shade of lipstick that matched her hat and short, graying hair, hair still a strong brown tone. Pearls rested on her collarbone and Toni was immediately intrigued.

Then she realized.

“I’m Toni,” she said breathlessly, holding out a hand to the woman. The latter smiled and took it. 

“I know,” she replied with a smirk. “I’m Peggy.”

“I know,” Toni said. Peggy Carter raised an eyebrow. 

“So, I presume we’re here under the same circumstances?” she inquired, and something in Toni’s chest broke. 

“You knew him?”

“We were the best of friends, I suppose,” Peggy murmured, eyes at her feet. “Though that title would come later in life. If you are here and not Howard, I assume he was something to you as well. Something more than a butler.”

“My protector.”

Peggy glanced up at Toni and they met each other’s gazes. Peggy’s was hardened, focused, assertive and burdened somehow. Toni wondered what her eyes looked like to other people. They certainly weren’t green green. 

“From what?” asked the woman. Softly. Toni sort of despised how soft her voice was. She despised how she couldn’t form a right answer, despised how she only gave a slight shrug, despised and  _ angry and sad  _ that she couldn’t just  _ tell her. _

“Monsters in the dark,” she managed. 

“I see,” said Peggy. Her eyes continued searching Toni’s. 

“Thank you all for being here,” began the lawyer, stumbling over his words. 

The lights dimmed in Toni’s eyes and she felt a hand grip her own. 

Edwin Jarvis was not a wealthy man, that was for certain. He had no gold, no fortune, hardly left an inheritance. Ana, his beloved wife and someone who always appeared cold to Toni, got the last remains of his money, his estate (a small flat in York), and some of his trinket-things. Peggy got the sentiments, inside jokes they had shared, brief memories of a time forgotten. Toni got a letter. 

She wanted to burn it. She wanted to scream and tear it to pieces, wanted to scream at Howard, wanted to scream at Jarvis for leaving her, wanted to scream at Rhodey for staying with her when she could hardly stay with him. She wanted to scream at Peggy for seeming so goddamn put together, so goddamn lifeless and hard and everything Toni wanted -  _ needed  _ to be. She wanted to scream but shut up, she  _ shut up,  _ because a woman like her couldn’t be emotional. 

She was made of iron. She was made of iron. She was made of iron. She was made of iron. She was made of iron.

It was nighttime when she finally had the courage to open it. 

_ Antonia Boyana Stark, _

_ One day you asked me if I’ve ever loved someone. Yes, I said, yes. I love my wife, Ana, and I love you. And you said it wasn’t real love, because perhaps I was supposed to love you as if you were a burden to me. I  _ had  _ to love you. _

_ No, Antonia, no. It wasn’t that at all. I love you as if you are my own daughter - because I believe that you are. _

_ It broke me to leave you, Antonia, it broke me in ways I still cannot understand. I am - I  _ was _ your protector, and I failed you that night. I’m sorry for that. But I was frightened, frightened because someone who I used to think a friend threatened the people I love the most. You, Antonia, you and Ana and darling Peggy (don’t tell her I called her darling. She’ll get rather pissed off). So yes, I was frightened and a coward and I fled. I left you alone in the hands of that wretched monster, left you all alone with no one to protect you. I hope that someone is protecting you now, Antonia, I really do. I hope you’re enjoying your time at school - MIT, is it? Yes, I think so.  _

_ I am truly sorry for the press, for they think of you only as a partier, only as a feeble and weak woman with no place in the world. You are nothing of the sort, Antonia. Nothing of the sort, I assure you.  _

_ Keep your head up, Antonia. Keep your head up and your shoulders back and don’t you let anyone hurt you. Never again, Antonia.  _

_ For you are beautiful and brilliant and strong, and although it may pain you to think of yourself in that way, it is true.  _

_ After all, Antonia is beauty and praiseworthy, Boyana is warrior, and Stark is unyielding. Stark is strength.  _

_ One last thing, Antonia. One last thing. I am sorry… that I wasn’t able to be as brave as I’d like, sorry that I wasn’t able to protect you as much as I could’ve. And I hope you will learn to love someone, Antonia, I hope that one day someone will break down those walls and love you, and you will love them back.  _

_ I debated whether or not to compile some of your favorite fairy tale stories, then I realized: you, Antonia Boyana Stark, are your own princess. You are your own savior and you do not need silly stories to prove it.  _

_ I love you, Toni, and I hope you love me. _

_ -Your Jarvis _

“I love you,” Toni shouted, and she said it again and again, “I love you I love you I love you,” and she screamed it to the heavens above where she hoped that Jarvis was watching because although she did not believe in a God she often found herself praying to him. “I love you, Jarvis, and I’m  _ sorry,  _ I’m  _ sorry,  _ I can’t do it, I can’t do it alone, I’m alone, Jarvis, I’m alone I’m  _ sorry  _ I’m so  _ sorry  _ I was too late, I -”

“Baby girl,” and suddenly Rhodey’s hands were wrapped around her, and she was collapsing in his arms and she felt so  _ weak  _ (she wasn’t strong, she wasn’t strong, she didn’t have the strength Jarvis somehow saw of her). “How about spring break, yeah? I can see it now: France. No, Italy, see some of your Italian roots, y’know? Put some of that language of yours to the test. Maybe Russia or Bulgaria. Nah, just Italy. It’s prettier, yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” Toni sobbed, “I’m sorry I’m not strong enough.”

“Oh, baby girl, hush,” said Rhodey, pressing a kiss into her hair. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be so goddamn strong all the time, you know that? You scare me sometimes, Toni, because sometimes you just refuse to feel. It’s okay to be weak once in a while, baby girl. All of us do it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. 

“No need to apologize,” he murmured, and they sat there for a while, on top of the hotel roof, under the brilliance of the night sky. After a while, Rhodey begins singing ‘Back in Black’ - AC/DC. His voice is rough and beautiful and it carried on through the dark, lighting up the stars and chasing away the clouds that covered the moon. Toni couldn’t help it; she laughed. 

“What?” Rhodey asked, feigning shock and being offended. “You don’t like my voice?”

“You saved me,” Toni said quietly. Rhodey sighed. 

“Nah, baby girl. You did that yourself.”

Another long, hardly painful pause. 

Then,

“Italy sounds fan-fuckin-tastic.”

Rhodey whooped.

… 

She wanted to say that life was beautiful after that. She wanted it to be like a movie - everything was going wrong and nothing was going right, and then one character would offer up some reassuring words and suddenly the world was OK again. But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all.

Rhodey, though, continued to be kind and beautiful. And she continued to dream of green green eyes (the first time she knew love), and suddenly there was a new pair: calmer, gentle irises, lined with wrinkles from a lifetime of smiling. She liked them, the two pair of eyes, balancing them out. A certain, delightful fierceness and spunky attitude in one, quiet words and late nights filled with storytelling in the other. 

She wore the sweater that Rhodey made her, at night when he couldn’t see her shake in the dark, when he couldn’t hear her whimpering screams accompanied by a jolt awake, when he couldn’t feel the hairs on her bodies rise and the shivers turn to convulsions in the corner of the room. When he didn’t know she was  _ weak.  _

Stark men are made of iron. 

Stark men are made of iron. 

Stark men -

“Are you really Howard Stark’s daughter?”

“What?” 

Toni glanced up from her project to see a group of students, most likely a few years older than her, peering in through her open door. It was still broken from the time Rhodey had kicked it in, but she didn’t mind the false sense of security. She was used to not feeling safe. 

“Oh, uh, yeah. Why?”

The group erupted into furious whispers, maybe of intimidation, maybe some words along the lines of  _ I told you so? _

“What are you working on?” one of them asked, stepping in. He was a slim white boy with bouncy blond hair and a smirk that would make girls swoon. Toni, however, was not amused. She already hated him.

“I didn’t ask you to come in,” she informed him, but the boy ignored her. 

“Whoa! Is that a new Stark Phone?” asked a chubby and short girl with curly, mousy brown hair cut close to her shoulders. She wore a bright red, almost hard to look at shirt and a short white skirt, a black belt separating them. It suited her. The white boy (ugh, thought Toni - despite it also being her race, she was so fed up with the way white people treated everyone with a skin tone just a shade darker than theirs) leaned in and snatched the prototype from Toni’s work desk. 

“Hey!” Toni protested, lunging for it and grabbing it away. “ _ Did I say you can touch that?  _ Hell, did I even say you can come in?”

There was so much Howard in her words.

It scared her. 

It made her afraid. 

Where was Rhodey?

Where was -

“Jeez, no need to be so touchy,” laughed the boy, and his friends laughed with him. A bunch of white college boys and a couple of white college girls thinking they were so funny, so popular, so worthy. “I was just messing around, alright? Didn’t mean to touch your stuff. M’name’s Chad. Nice to meet you, Antonia.”

He held out a smooth, non-calloused hand. Toni slowly took it into her gloved one. 

“It’s Toni,” she corrected quietly. 

God. When was she ever  _ quiet? _

“What’s it like being Howard Stark’s daughter?” one of the two girls in the group of six asked, her voice eager and her eyes willing to take in any story Toni told. Toni  _ loved it.  _ They weren’t the press, they weren’t the paparazzi, they wouldn’t twist her words and post screwy photos of her on paper, they were  _ real  _ and they were  _ dumb college kids.  _

“Are you gonna inherit Stark Industries?” another boy whispered. 

“Do you really think that you’re gonna be as successful as Howard is?” demanded yet another white boy. 

Toni laughed. “Hold on, guys, it’s early and this isn’t a press - wait, what did you say?”

She zeroed in on the boy who had asked the last question. The kid shrugged, feigning innocence. “I said, do you really think that you’re gonna be as successful as Howard is? And Obadiah Stane?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” and Toni folded her arms, tapping her blood-red nails on the crook of her elbow. She was glad she’d gotten back from an awards ceremony the night before (no sleep between then and now) and still had her makeup on: still had her crimson lipstick, her gold eyeshadow, her black eyeliner. Her hair was down, yes; it made it all the more regal. Balanced out the ratty AC/DC tee. 

“I  _ mean _ ,” and the boy leaned in closer, stepping away from his place in front of the doorway, “Do you honestly expect to do the great things Howard Stark has done?”

Toni frowned, furrowed her eyebrows, scrunched up her face and put her hand up to her ear as if she couldn’t hear him. 

“Speak up, I-I don’t understand you. What was it - you don’t think I can be as successful as….”

“Howard Stark,” one of the girls finished for her. Toni grinned. 

“Right. My father. A  _ man.” _

“Hey, I never said that,” the boy said, holding his hands up in surrender but not outright denying it. Toni  _ hmphed.  _

“Oh, okay. So, you just don’t think I’m as smart as him.”

_ Where’s Rhodey?  _

_ Where’s Jarvis?  _

_ Where’s - _

The boy shrugged with a smirk so smug Toni had to physically hold herself back from slapping him. 

“I mean,” (oh God he’s continuing, thought Toni), “Do you really expect to, um, ‘find Captain America? Yeah, he’s a war hero, but he’s dead.”

His friends laughed and Toni  _ fumed.  _

“My father was his friend,” she justified. She hated how her voice faltered. “He - he just wants to bring him back, y’know. Find his shield or - y’know.”

_ She hated how her voice faltered. _

“Or something,” the boy repeated, starting to mill around her room. “What the fuck’s this?” he asked, picking at her sweater (the one she wore at night, when he couldn’t see her shake). 

“Lay off, Matt,” Chad drawled. “C’mon, man. She obviously seems busy.”

Laughter. 

Toni  _ fumed.  _

Before the group left her room she grabbed onto the boy Matt’s arm, causing him to reel around and tug his forearm away. (897th mistake.)

“Don’t touch me,” he growled. 

_ Howard? _

“I just wanted to tell you,” she said, her voice low ( _ Howard?),  _ “that I’m going to be better than my father.” (Howard.) “I’m going to recreate Stark Industries in the way he never could. I’m going to find Captain America. I am going to  _ win. _ ”

He stared at her for a minute or so, maybe less. Maybe more. His friends were silent. 

“Stark men are made of iron,” she told him. He blinked.

“And what are Stark women made of?” 

Her heart pounded and she was silent. 

“Eat shit and die, fag,” he said, and she shoved them out the room.

She fixed the door the next day. 

… 

Italy was her heaven. 

Of course, she never believed in a God. She found that philosophy and science were beautiful enough to not need a God, but of course, religion was just as wondrous. 

But Italy was  _ heaven.  _

She and Rhodey spent their lazy days in the orchards and the fields and the meadows or lounging by a river or chasing each other in the halls of the stone 1700-something house they were staying in. 

They were in the countryside, the part where the world was just rolling green hills and sharp lines making orchards and an expanse of red flowers. The sky was always blue and the stars were always out, and things were  _ good.  _

She didn’t work as much in Italy, and that was okay, because suddenly she didn’t shake as much at night, suddenly nightmares didn’t plague her at 2:00 AM, suddenly -

Italy was made of rich violin music and fine-tasting, dark wine, of oranges and vines and grapes. Italy was the seaside, where she and Rhodey would spend afternoons, and the seaside was waves like elegant drums and towering cliffs and sand so white she had to squint and look away. The water was a blue, blue, wonderful blue, and the fields were green, green, reminding her of a memory long forgotten, a memory of fierce little eyes. 

She found her hands trailing along the side of hallways in their house, the stone moist and smelling of an Earth she couldn’t seem to find back in New York or Massachusetts. Everything was quiet there, and she didn’t complain, because she knew that sometimes it was better to be quiet. 

Sometimes. 

On the day when they would go into town, she always led the way. Rhodey would follow along behind her, barely being able to keep up as they navigated the winding, twisting pathways made of cobble and flowers and beauty. They never stopped laughing. Juice dribbled down chins and hands were spread open wide to receive fresh-baked bread and jars of sauce and candles scented to perfection. 

Everything was  _ right  _ in Italy. 

On one particular night, when she and Rhodey were silent staring up at the sky (there were so many stars), she almost started talking (she felt so safe, looking at all those stars). She almost started telling him (feeling the moon’s gaze on her bare arms) everything - why she wore her gloves, why she never spoke with her father, why -

She stopped herself. Wondered if he already knew.

Better just stare up at the stars. 

Rhodey told her that he wanted to join the Airforce. 

… 

Everything was gray when she returned to school. She worked hard, yes, harder than before (I’m going to be better than my father. I’m going to recreate Stark Industries in the way he never could. I’m going to find Captain America. I am going to  _ win) _ , and she won awards and she was followed around campus and everyone thought she and Rhodey were dating and she couldn’t decide on a gender to love (look at David Bowie, she wanted to tell them,  _ Star Man  _ playing in her head) - while meanwhile she didn't love anyone. She  _ couldn’t  _ love anyone. 

She had Rhodey, yes, but that was different, wasn’t it? He was her savior. He wasn’t her lover. It was different. 

She missed Jarvis terribly, especially on the nights when she remembered Howard’s hands on her, remembered how her beloved protector would heal her wounds with ointment and tentative hugs, on the nights when Howard would call her up and she couldn’t not answer. On the nights when the screams would follow her to bed and chase her out again, wielding her to keep working. 

_ Keep working.  _

_ (She was going to be better than him.) _

She missed Italy terribly (though not as terribly as she missed Jarvis) - missed the lazy afternoons and the juice dribbling down chins. She missed the brightness of it all, and the quietness, and the happiness and the laughter and - 

It was gray at school. 

So she worked harder. 

She made more.

She accomplished more. 

The public only cared about who she was kissing now. Same with Howard. 

She graduated and decided to spend the summer in Italy. Howard didn’t allow it. Rhodey (Rhodey, Rhodey, Rhodey) began his basic training for the Air Force early. Now, months after Toni met him, he was all short black hair and a sharp jawline and pressed uniforms. He was rough hands that always found her (but they were calming, they were so calming) and smooth words and letters with scribbled penmanship. 

_ (But he left her.) _

Toni moved back to the mansion (907th mistake) and spent as much time as she could away from it. She still wore her sweater at night (now no one could see her shake), still worked hard (she had to work harder, she couldn’t stop). She wore her hair up in loose buns pinned with gold pieces. She was all ripped shorts and tank tops and nightmares and shaking hands. She kept them still, though, kept them still for the camera and for her tools. She never followed the fads the other teenagers followed - bright colors and stripes and updos and mullets and hairspray. She liked to think she was a being unto herself. She believed this.

But Howard was still there, and the Captain America room was there, and Rhodey wasn’t there, and Jarvis wasn’t there, and Howard was  _ so, so angry.  _

There was a small place in the local park, a clearing with a couple wonderfully grand oak trees. The only way in was through a secluded path hidden by overgrown shrubs and bushes and trees, and Toni used the opening as a way to escape. Escape the cameras, escape Howard, escape herself, the stupid shit she’d done. 

She would climb up into those branches and sit there, nestled in the arms of a tree, with her sketchpad and Jarvis’ note and Rhodey’s letters. She liked to design up there, high in the trees, nothing but birds (oh, how she longed to be a bird) and leaves to keep her company. 

Things were right in the branches. Things were wrong down below. 

When the summer was over (she’d never worked harder in those fleeting months) and the bruises faded, she returned to MIT. She requested a double room this time. She didn’t like the emptiness of a quad.

On move-in day, after everyone had gone to the bars and to the parties and the meet-ups, she sat outside her door for a while, half-expecting for Rhodey to stumble upon her. He didn’t. 

He was gone. 

Jarvis was gone. 

She was alone. 

“I miss you,” she would cry (she was  _ weak) _ \- to who, she didn’t know. She missed so many people. She missed herself, missed the old version, who kept the snark to herself, who still had those green green eyes to hold on to, who cherished the moments spent in the Italian countryside. 

People never stuck around in her life for long. Rhodey was the longest, besides Jarvis of course. She liked Rhodey. She loved him. 

But people - people who weren’t people like Rhodey - they were around for a couple weeks, maybe a month or so, and then they were gone. It was her money that drew them in, her money and her deniable beauty. She was fierce (not as fierce as those eyes), and they all just ate it up. The press loved it. Loved her quick comments, loved the flip of her hair, loved the arch of her eyebrows peeking over her sunglasses. She called reporters ‘dears’. Made her feel powerful, made them feel insignificant. 

(Howard.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope y'all enjoyed reading! please leave a comment down below and let me know what you think. do you have any suggestions, any ideas for chapters onward? i'd love to hear them!  
> have a wonderful day.


	5. chapter five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> toni graduates, builds, lives alone, and returns home for Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright.  
> i'm seeing infinity war later today - no spoilers in the comments! :) i'm still mentally preparing myself.  
> anyways, thank you for the support! you're all so incredibly lovely. anyways, i hope you enjoy this chapter.

There was a pool, somewhere on campus. If Rhodey was with her, they would’ve swum together, laughing and splashing each other, floating on their backs and annoying the people who swam support. 

But Rhodey wasn’t with her, so she swam alone. 

It was peaceful. There was a word - yes, safe, that described what it was like. Because suddenly, as soon as the noises became muted and her body became numb (the water was always cold, so cold, but once the feeling in your heart slipped away it became quite pleasant), she lost her grip on the world around her. Let it fall through crevices in her brain and seep through her skin. 

Underwater, things were peaceful, and things were safe. 

… 

Toni had a love-hate relationship with press conferences. On the one hand, sometimes the cameras and the lights became too much (as she worried she was too much for Rhodey, for anyone around her), and the reporters’ voices and questions ( _ Stark men are made of iron. And what are Stark women made of?)  _ overwhelmed her to the point where she had to retreat into the safety of a closet or a bathroom or a car. 

On the other hand, she was  _ powerful,  _ and the world was finally starting to realize it. She would show up, all tears forgotten and crimson lipstick, black curls and gold eyeshadow and black eyeliner. She was blazers and skirts and tight shorts and huge hats and sunglasses. She was smirks instead of smiles.

She was in her last year at MIT. She was more accomplished there than hundreds of their graduates - no, more. After this, she would move to the city somewhere, buy a penthouse, convert some of it into a workshop - 

_ Stark men are made of iron. _

_ And what are Stark women made of? _

… 

Toni Stark was  _ bored. _

She was bored with designing tech and weapons to be used to kill others. She was bored of going to classes and walking around in the gray world. She was tired of living alone, of living without Rhodey.

Until he came back. 

(“It’s not going to be very long, Toni, maybe a month or so.”

“That’s enough for me, honey-bear.”)

“Let’s create something,” she urged one afternoon. 

Everything was gray. 

She was determined to make it red and gold. 

Rhodey bit into his oreo. ( _ “My  _ Oreo,” Toni would say indignantly. “They’re mine.”)

“Like what?”

“I dunno,” Toni drawled. She liked that phrase. She thought it suited her. 

“The 4th Annual M.I.T. Robot Design Award is coming up,” Rhodey pondered. Toni groaned and rolled around on the bed until she was lying on the floor, the image of her beautiful Rhodey upside-down.

“That sounds boring,” she said. 

“Nothing else better to do,” he said. 

So she worked. 

Rhodey, as kind and as beautiful as he was, was not  _ amazing  _ at the nature of mechanics. Technology, maybe (he’d gotten in over research on slowly advancing drone and surveillance camera technology), but most of the time he would watch her with a small smile (a smirk, she thought) on his face, occasionally saying  _ “Good job, baby girl, you got this, keep going”  _ and munching on Oreos.

“You do nothing but stand around all day,” she complained often. “I mean if you expect you’re gonna take credit for this, then -”

“It’s all yours, baby girl,” Rhodey said, stepping back from the birthing of her creation with his hands up in surrender. “You’re doing great.” 

He watched her work for a few more minutes. 

Then, 

“What are you making, exactly?”

“Rhodey,” she sighed, “poor poor Rhodey. I wonder what it must be like in that silly little brain of yours. This, Jim,” and she ran her hand along the silvery metal, “is the future.  _ This  _ is an  _ invention  _ of epic proportions. A machine that’s not a machine, no - a being that is coded to do the most simplest and the most complex of actions. This beauty is possibly the smartest thing I’ve ever created.”

“It doesn’t look like anything,” Rhodey muttered, “just a pile of scraps and bolts and circuits.”

“Patience, dear Jim,” Toni scolded. “You have to wait. Yes, I haven’t created him -”

_ “Him?” _

“Deal with it, Rhodey. Yes, I haven’t exactly  _ finished  _ him yet, but he’s coming along. He’s getting there.”

“He isn’t anywhere at the moment,” Rhodey scoffed. 

“Out!” Toni ordered. Rhodey groaned and tossed another oreo into his mouth before stomping out of her room.

Toni smiled. 

It felt good to smile.

She kept working, and her professors excused her from classes (like she would go anyway) to work on her project. She was expected to win - expected by everyone. Her father, the students, the public, the professors, even herself. She was confident. 

It felt good to be confident. 

She continued to explain to Rhodey how smart her machine would be (even though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was building, the pieces just sort of fell into place), and how functional it would be, and how it could act like a real human being. 

“Hey, I believe you,” Rhodey said with a grin. “You’re gonna do it, baby girl. You’re gonna prove them wrong.”

“I’m not proving anyone wrong, I’d be proving them right,” she reminded him. “Everyone thinks I’m going to win.”

“You know what I mean,” he said quietly. Toni went silent. 

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark drunk her first night at college! _

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark - sex with stranger outside pub?!? _

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark with a new man?? Read all about it!  _

_ Stark Heiress Antonia Stark too much to handle? Find out what  _ Howard Stark  _ says about it! _

(She wondered if they knew how much it stung.)

(She wondered if they knew she was starting to believe them.)

(She wondered if she was ever too much for anyone. She certainly was for herself.)

Sadly, her creation turned out to be anything but the smartest thing ever made. 

It worked, of course. Everything she made worked. It did the functions with incredible smoothness, the long grappling arm sitting on a base that reminded Toni of a vacuum cleaner. 

The machine wasn’t really artificial intelligence (though Toni didn’t really think of it as a machine - sorry, ‘him’), but he did seem to have a conscious. He constantly tried to mess around with Toni - knock her tools of a table, whirr around and around for hours on end with the full capability to stop, etc. He often refused to carry out actions during demonstrations, then Toni would pull him aside for a talk in a very harsh voice and he would comply. In fact, he was so dumb and stubborn that Toni named him DUM-E.

She won. 

Rhodey left. 

It was just her and DUM-E now. 

Shouldn’t be too bad, right?

She hadn’t seen Rhodey in months. He still wrote to her, told her he was okay but couldn’t give any more information. Though he was still a cadet, he was learning quickly and gaining respect, just as Toni was. He was going places. 

It didn’t stop the fear of losing him, though. She never told him that. She supposed they both knew. She would be strong for him, that’s all he wanted.

She had more meetings with Obie and Howard - tense, brief get-togethers where they would discuss where the company was and how they were moving forward, etc, mostly leaving Toni out of it. Howard still refused to accept her as the heir to the company. Hell, Toni was having a hard time accepting herself. It was… strange, to say the least, being in the same room with Howard and not having him outwardly scream or hit her. Nice, but strange. Almost scary. Of course, all of his business partners were there as well, so he couldn’t have done it either way. 

But still. 

… 

Christmas time, spent at college.

The anniversary of Jarvis’ death. 

She mourned him in silence, a blowtorch in her hand and her hair tied back. 

She mourned him, all alone, in the gray world of hers. 

Her protector.

… 

Rhodey returned briefly sometime after Christmas for a fleeting goodbye before he was sent on some shitty top secret mission. 

“I hate you,” she wanted to say, “I hate you for leaving me. I hate you, I hate you, but I love you, I love you with all my heart, but it’s not the same love, is it? Not real love, not the kind of love Jarvis told me in his note.”

She read and re-read all of his letters after he left. I miss you, she wanted to say (wanted to  _ scream) _ , but the words wouldn’t come. 

Weeks passed, no sign from Rhodey. There was a chronic fluttering in her stomach, a pain in the back of her mind, a  _ what if?  _ He’d already left her once, she could hardly bear to think about him leaving her again - 

leaving like Jarvis did. 

She drank, too. Not the wonderful and beautiful wine of Italy (she decided she just wasn’t sophisticated enough for that), but the hard tangy bottles of beer and cheap store liquor. She stayed away from the blood alcohol. 

(Howard.)

(She was afraid.)

(She wouldn’t let him know that.)

Spring break came and passed, Toni spending it in her dorm room, and then Rhodey showed up for a few days. They ate ice cream and she showed him her trees and then he left again, and she was alone, and the world was grey and bleak and she was  _ tired.  _

Summer. 

She graduated MIT Summa Cum Laude, having past all of her classes to the highest degree even after skipping most of them. She won the medals one could win and shook hands with the people you were supposed to shake hands with, and that was it. Made the paper. Not the headline. 

_ Stark men are made of iron. _

_ And what are Stark women made of? _

No Rhodey. 

She missed him, she missed him, she missed him, and she was shaking at night, all wrapped up in the sweater he gave her, and she worried she worried she worried but deep down (not so far down, actually), she knew: he left her, just like Jarvis, just like Jordan, just like Alana, just like, just like, just  _ like.  _

Just like she promised herself, she flashed a middle finger at Howard and bolted before he could wrap his hands around her neck. Then she bought a penthouse apartment in Midtown, Manhattan, right near the Empire State Building. It was a fairly new building, high and tall and towering over everyone else. It consisted of a mix of apartments and offices and the windows were so large and the spaces were so open and everything was so beautiful Toni decided that when she was older she would buy the whole thing. 

But for now, she settled on the top apartment. 

(But there were no stars in New York City.)

(And the wind was always cold, so high up in the sky.)

(And she was alone.)

(At least she had DUM-E.)

The apartment was beautiful. A wonderful view of the sunrise and sunset, she would wake up every morning with the pain thin streaks of color and the darkness fading into peach and purple, fading into a light blue and then backward at nighttime. Fading wasn’t the right word, though, for everything was so smooth and so perfect. 

(But there were no stars in New York City.)

She loved it when the sun would begin to slip, but it wasn’t quite gone and everything was  _ golden _ , and the windows of the skyscrapers turned to gold, and the streets and the tips of trees turned to gold, and edges of the sky turned to gold. It was easy to just stop for a moment and step out into the gold light and let it calm you. 

She was seventeen now.

She went out at nights, went to blaring bars and dances and kissed with a passion like it was the end of the world, and laughed like nothing else mattered, and missed and missed and missed (but she wouldn’t let them know), and she drank (no blood alcohol, not yet, not yet), and she sifted through dried up flowers from Italy and mementos she now found stupid. Howard wouldn’t let her travel anymore. One day, she knew, she’d pack everything up and visit all the countries in the world, with no one but herself to protect her. 

She worked, too, as she always had. She converted half of the penthouse into a workstation, with DUM-E at her heels. He was like a dog, a really dumb dog who accidentally slammed its head into walls or tables or whatever on a daily occasion. 

Toni found that working sort of eased the pain of everything. Eased the misery, eased the longing and the missing, eased the headache of a hangover. Working, and classic rock. Metallica, Queen, AC/DC. Sometimes, on days when she was feeling nostalgic (although she almost outright  _ refused  _ to feel nostalgic), she’d listen to some Elvis and The Beatles slow songs. Love songs. 

Love, of course, was a waste of time. 

_ And I hope you will learn to love someone, Antonia, I hope that one day someone will break down those walls and love you, and you will love them back. _

Rhodey was still gone.

Maria was still distant. 

Howard was still yelling.

Obie was still smirking.

Jarvis was still dead. 

Toni was still working. 

She wondered how long it would be until she fell. 

… 

Her apartment was made of gears and gadgets, blueprints and screens, windows that looked out into New York City lights, empty packages of Oreos and old McDonald's bags. She had a record player tucked away in the corner, half-hidden behind a drooping plant. It was irony, she thought, to be playing a band like Metallica or an artist like David Bowie on a delicate beauty like that old record player. 

Irony, but bliss. 

She was more isolated from the public then she’d ever been, only going outside to buy groceries or supplies or escape to her trees, even if it was raining or snowing or the wind was so strong her lungs struggled to keep up with the hair being forced down her lungs. 

And then Christmas came along. 

(She missed Rhodey.)

Obie, on a quick and to-the-point phone call, said that it wasn’t good for Howard’s image for her to be cooped up and away from the public eye for so long - and to be away from her parents? And at such a young, vulnerable age? A shame to the Stark name. 

(Stark meant unyielding.)

(Stark meant strong.)

(She hadn’t spoken her languages in a long time, not out loud.)

(Agreeing to spend Christmas with her family was a mistake.)

(She struggled to keep up with the growing numbers.)

“Antonia,” Maria greeted, flashing a smile at the cameras, the people in hoodies and pens. Toni tentatively hugged her mother. 

“Maria,” she muttered, “Nice to see you.”

The three of them lined up on the steps of the mansion, Obie standing off to the side, Maria and Howard’s arms around Toni. She hid a grimace at the feeling of Howard’s hands tight around her forearm. They all smiled and Howard waved his free hand. 

Their mouths stayed shut to the onslaught of questions. 

“We have a lot to talk about,” Howard murmured. 

Something cold settled within Toni’s bones. 

… 

The three of them - Obadiah Stane, Howard Stark, and Antonia Boyana Stark had a meeting that night. 

They were silent for a few minutes before Obie spoke.

“Antonia,” he began.

“Toni,” she interrupted. 

“Jesus,” Howard muttered. Toni could just hear the eyeroll in his words.

“Toni,” Obadiah continued, “It’s time we talk about your position at the company… officially. As you know, your father and I have continued our search for Captain America and it’s consumed a lot of our time. He’s gonna be our legacy, Toni, I just want you to know that, and if you play your cards right - he can be  _ your  _ legacy as well.”

She wanted to  _ laugh.  _

Howard laughed first and leaned against the wall of the conference room. “I mean,” he said, “Obie and I aren’t gonna be around forever. That’s a truth. And -” (he  _ sighed _ ) “- we can’t deny that you are doing really good things. Mechanic and technology speaking that is. The public can’t deny it either.”

“But,” Obadiah started, “you know we know  _ everyone  _ knows it’s gonna be a long time until you’ll be able to take over this country.”

_ “If  _ you take over the company,” Howard interjected.

_ Christ,  _ Toni thought, watching them pace around her and finish each other’s sentences,  _ it’s like a television show or something. A sitcom. _

“If something happens to Howard,” Obie shrugged, “Then I take over the company. There’s a long line of successors until you, Tones.”

_ Prove them wrong. _

“Actually,” Toni said, standing from her place at the table (she loved how she was almost, if not as tall as Howard), “I’m the successor when I turn twenty-one.”

They both paused. 

There was fire in Howard’s eyes.

“Excuse me?” said Obie. Toni shrugged, a shrug that matched both of theirs. A matter-of-fact shrug. 

“It’s true. Stark Industries has always been generation-to-generation.” (Of men.) “It says so in the contract.”

“Wha -” Obadiah said, but Toni cut him off. 

She was making so many mistakes. 

She just didn’t care. 

(It was at least 1,084 mistakes so far.)

“Well, not the contract,” she continued, “but the official Stark business paper or something. The most legal and the most binding of them all. ‘The successor of Stark Industries, who will become CEO, must be of the Stark line. If the previous Stark Industries CEO would fall ill/resign/perish then the inheritor must be twenty-one (21) years-old.’” A pause. Then, “My grandfather, the founder of Stark Industries, wrote this.”

They stared at her. 

She felt triumphant.

(Mistake.)

(Howard got angry that night.)

… 

She forgot to go to bed early that night - she forgot her routine at the Stark Mansion. She had forgotten what it was like to live in cowardice, with trembling hands, with quiet words and a quiet mind. It wasn’t her, but she had to be, or else -

She forgot to go to bed early that night. 

She was hung up in the kitchen, eating the gingerbread cookies Howard’s cooks had made for them all. It was Christmas Eve. 11:58. Two minutes to Christmas. Two minutes until Santa’s comin to town. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder. 

It was dark in the kitchen.

She smelled the long-forgotten scent of blood alcohol.

The only light was from the bathroom down the hall. 

She felt the blow of the punch on her nose.

She wondered if the moon was out that night. 

She heard his words -  _ you  _ (hit)  _ little  _ (slap)  _ shit  _ (push). 

It was cool and calm down on the floor. 

She was aware of herself standing up. 

She felt the pause of the next blow, the hesitance, the surprise.

She stood again.

And again.

And then she shoved back. 

And took a swing of the blood alcohol.

And turned and went to bed. 

… 

On Christmas morning she found the old concealer Jarvis had used on her whenever she had gotten a particularly bad blow. When she woke up her eye was crusted over with dry blood from a cut on her scalp (thankfully not swollen shut), her lip was split, blood had clogged up one nostril and was threatening to clog the other, and a wonderful angry red and purple bruise highlighted her jawline.

She grinned.

She was skilled enough to wash away the blood, hide the wounds, and hide the pain. Howard avoided talking to her or doing anything with her in general. They exchanged gifts (oh, gloves, thank you Maria), had a photo shoot on their doorstep, and ate chocolate and goodies and then Howard worked. 

Maria and Howard went to bed early that night. 

Howard had left the door to the Captain America Room ajar. She clicked the light switch up. 

Toni felt angry. 

She felt angry and betrayed and there was a thundering in her ears (her heart?) because it was  _ him.  _ It was him, never her. She never meant anything to Howard. Never, never, never, not in a million years. She wasn’t Captain Fucking America. She wasn’t Bucky. She wasn’t Steve Rogers. She wasn’t  _ Stevie.  _

His face was so handsome and so smug in that black and white photo and he looked so fucking brave and heroic, something she could never be because Stark men are made of iron but she had no idea what Stark women were made of. She was just a girl with scarred hands, a tool in each, and old work boots. Looking at him, standing beside James Buchanan Barnes and all of the other Howling Commandos, a shield in hand, and then them all smiling and looking so goddamn strong.

The shield prototype shone, its colors vibrant and making themselves known despite the shitty lighting. 

Toni was numb.

“He was a great man,” Howard said. Toni turned. Her father was leaning against the doorway, his hair all ruffled up and his eyes bleary with sleep. He didn’t stink of blood alcohol. He didn’t make a move towards her, either. She appreciated that. (Sick thought.)

“I’m sorry I’ll never be him,” Toni said. The words felt strange in her mouth and yet, very right. They flowed easily. “I wish I could be.”

“Steve Rogers,” Howard mumbled, shifting around from his position against the door. “He was one heck of a soldier. He sacrificed himself, you know.”

“I know.”

“Christ, Peggy was devastated. She didn’t want to let us know, but we did. You could see it in her eyes. I was too, of course. That’s why I’m going to find him.”

“But what if she’s gone?” Toni murmured. Howard shrugged. 

“I’m going to find him,” he repeated, “and if I don’t, then I need you too.”

Toni didn’t know how to speak, how to move, how to - 

“Will you let me take over Stark Industries?” she asked softly. 

“If something happens to me,” Howard began (she felt angry), “You are the rightful heir. I won’t protest, I won’t find some legal loophole. If you’re twenty-one or older, you’re the new face of Stark Industries.”

“I’m sorry,” Toni said again, “I wish I was a son. Maybe then -”

She didn’t finish her sentence. 

But they both knew what she was going to say. 

_ Maybe then you’d love me.  _

“Toni -” Howard started ( _ Toni),  _ but stopped. (Green green eyes.)

“Good night,” Toni said slipping past him. 

She didn’t feel that angry anymore. 

She dreamed of green green eyes and quick kisses on the palms of her hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for making it to the end! hopefully, the new chapter will be back up on wednesday. maybe i'll edit these notes after i see the movie.  
> please leave a comment down below and i hope you all have a wonderful day!
> 
> UPDATE:  
> i came back from infinity war about an hour ago. i haven't stopped crying.


	6. chapter six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time goes by, something good happens to toni (finally), december 16th, 1991.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am just blown away by the support i received last chapter! thank you all so much for the kind words. i hope you enjoy this chapter!

A year passed, then two, then three, and suddenly she was twenty. 

Birthdays passed fleetingly. Friends, too. She tried as much as she could to isolate herself from press conferences and the press itself, but oh - the paparazzi. It was the 1990s and all they cared about was the lives of the celebrities. Was she a celebrity? She assumed that if she was just the daughter of Howard Stark and not a playgirl, not a genius, not an already-millionaire in a billion-dollar industry, not a girl made of smirks and sarcasm they wouldn’t care as much. But she went to parties, she drank, she  _ lived.  _ She built, too, built in the absence of a late James Rhodes (Rhodey, Rhodey, I miss you). DUM-E was lonely.

She built him a friend. 

The robot constantly whirred and clicked, hanging its head low. He refused to even touch his Cheerios  _ or  _ his Oreos and followed Toni around wherever she went. The apartment was cramped as it was - she didn’t want to hire a maid or anything (Howard), but she had no time to clean for herself and - God, she was just so lazy when it came to housework. When she was growing up, she had Jarvis -

“DUM-E, I don’t know what you want,” Toni said with a sigh after DUM-E had nudged her fifteen times in the last five minutes. She was trying to program a new version of the Stark phone and maybe send it in to headquarters to get approved, or maybe even Obie (he always trusted her designs, just maybe never went through with them). DUM-E nudged her again and moved around in circles. He continued with this process for a good twenty or more minutes (leading Toni to think maybe he had a short in a wire somewhere) when he disappeared and came back with a ball. 

“You want to play,” Toni deadpanned. 

DUM-E began to move in circles again, pushing the ball around. He really was like a dog. 

“I’m sorry, bud, but I don’t have the time. Maybe -”

And that’s when she abandoned the phone and got to work. 

DUM-E was ecstatic when his new friend was finally ready. Creating him really wasn’t hard - Toni had just taken the old designs for DUM-E and improved them. Maybe added a camera. 

The two whirred happily and made a mess of her workshop, but Toni wasn’t so lonely anymore. Even if they were both just a nuisance. 

She missed Rhodey. She felt as if she hadn’t seen him in forever (had he forgotten her?). The last time he was able to come back (which was only for a week or two) was during the summer and it was October now. Kids shopped for brightly-colored costumes (she saw so many Captain Americas) and parents for bags of candy and rum. Psychopaths shopped for razor blades and bleach. 

She missed Rhodey.

He was on tour again. He was a Chief Master Sergeant, on way to becoming Second Lieutenant. He said so in a letter - he was so excited. Maybe one day he’d become a Captain, a Major, maybe even Colonel. Toni smiled at the letter. 

“Here’s your coat, ma’am,” said the waitress from the fancy restaurant. 

“I don’t like being handed things,” Toni said bluntly and waited for the reaction she’d gotten so many times.  _ God, what a spoiled bitch.  _

The waitress’s eyebrows furrowed and she laid the coat down on the counter and turned briskly away. Toni sighed and picked it up, running her hand through her mangled curls. She hadn’t seen a shower in days, much less a bed, and must smell terribly. She didn’t bother putting on any more makeup besides concealer (Howard) and so bags hung under her eyes - heavy and purple. Her eyes were bloodshot with the nights unslept and her mouth was smeared with the lipstick of mystery girls late at night. DUM-E and U, who was undeniably more intelligent than his brother (although still as stupid as a rug), found a way to convince her to finally get out of her workshop and eat. 

She missed her languages but it was hard to move her mouth sometimes. Just a little too numb. 

Late nights were usually spent working and drinking. Occasionally (at least three times a week) she’d go to a party or a club somewhere in the city when all anybody could see was flashing lights and tangled hair and the only thing anybody could hear was blaring 70s music. Toni would move and scream and sing and she would let her curls fall and then she’d collapse in the corner, a drink in one hand and a lady in the other. 

“You’re funny,” one of the girls told her, her voice hoarse and somewhat-lost to the music. Toni smirked.

“That’s what everyone tells me,” she said. The girl kissed her and Toni struggled the remember the word for  _ love  _ in Bulgarian. Struggled to recount her mistakes.

She didn’t really have a security detail anymore, maybe just someone who has to know of her whereabouts or who she’s meeting up with. She navigated the city streets alone, with no one to hold her hand at intersections. No one whispered a quick  _ good night  _ when the noise in her head dimmed, no one hugged her or held her when she woke  _ shaking  _ in wrinkled bed sheets and swore of sleeping for another week. DUM-E and U were her friends and God, that sounded pathetic. They were  _ robots,  _ Toni had to remind herself, not goddamn  _ friends.  _ Toni - she didn’t have  _ friends.  _

She thought she did, for a little while. In that brief and luxurious time between ages seventeen and nineteen, she would get undeniably, heartbreakingly, and so, so painfully close. She would take The Friend out to dinner, out shopping, she would try to act nice and clean things up. She would call them, and they would call her, and they would laugh at her witty and crude jokes and she’d laugh at theirs, and if it was a girl the media assumed they were fucking, and if it was a boy the media assumed she’d finally switched her ways, and then a month or so later The Friend would run off with a stack of bucks and she’d never hear from them again. 

So she decided she wouldn’t get attached. It was the only way. 

She got too attached to Jarvis, and look where it got her. 

She tried to distance herself from her parents as much as possible. She went to the Bahamas or some tropical coastline over the holidays, well before Howard could invite her, and she cut off phone calls and as many business meetings as she could. 

It worked. Almost.

Obie called her up the day after Halloween. 

“Hey, Toni, I was thinking. You design so many of our weapons - have you ever gotten a chance to shoot any?”

“You’ve never manufactured my designs when I give them to you, Obie.”

“R-right, but still, they’re some good designs. You wanna go to the shooting range sometime tomorrow? I’ll teach ya how to shoot a real Stark-made gun. How about it?”

She knew the rules of not drinking while shooting, but still, she didn’t see why putting some ice cold beer in a coffee thermos was that bad. 

Obadiah had security. And a private secretary who went with him at all times. Toni wondered if they were fucking. God, she was turning into the paparazzi. (She took a swing of her beer and pretended it was too hot.)

“Toni!” Obadiah greeted. He’d already donned a Stark rifle and had shot a few rounds as she entered the field. The ground was fairly wet and the world was fairly gray after the rain last night. She took another swing of the beer. 

“Uncle Obie,” she greeted. The man pulled her into a hug, relaxed and calm. 

Toni had always sort of  _ liked  _ Obadiah. He was the eye of the storm, in a way. Of course, Toni assumed that when one grew up in a household like hers, anyone who didn’t scream on the daily at her was a blessing unto themselves. And Obie really was. When Howard would curse her designs, Obie would praise them and review them in his workshop, maybe show them to some of his partners he would tell her. They had private business meetings and talked about her future and the future of the company. He called her on the phone at least once, twice a month, sometimes just for small talk. He was like - well, an uncle of some sorts. Maybe even a father. 

“Grab a gun and I’ll show you how it’s done,” he said, and they began. 

Shooting guns was… different from what she was used to. She was used to machines that moved around her, machines (well, they weren’t exactly  _ machines,  _ were they?) like DUM-E and U, her precious children. But guns were solid and compact and they had one purpose:  Shoot. Maybe kill. A lot of times kill. They followed simple directions - reload, cock, aim, shoot, reload. That’s just the way it was. They didn’t have any special features or any kind of intelligence. She’d made so many weapons before it was strange actually holding one in her hand, actually using one. 

“You’re a natural, Toni,” Obie told her after a few hours of hit-or-miss trials. Toni smiled. 

“Thanks,” she said, “I had a great teacher.”

That made him laugh. 

Rhodey came back the next week, and things were better.

She showed up at the airport with U and DUM-E. They each sported a sign: DUM-E’s was “WELCOME BACK HONEY BEAR!”, U’s was “I MISSED YOU DEARIE” and a sloppy heart painted in the corner, and Toni’s was “HUGS AND KISSES FOR MY BOYFRIEND, JAMES RHODES” and flashed a smile for the cameras. Rhodey shook his head at the sight of their signs and Toni made a flamboyant gesture of tossing her sign away and running into his arms, causing him to drop his duffel bag and hug her tight. 

“I missed you,” she whispered, and the sound of the cameras and the voices of the reporters dimmed into nothing. Rhodey pressed a kiss into her hair and Toni felt herself melt. 

She was wearing the sweater he made her, on that one Christmas so long ago. 

“I missed you too, baby girl,” Rhodey murmured. “You’re beautiful as always.” She didn’t protest, and he didn’t pull back.

“Are you leaving again?” she asked and her arms tensed around his torso.

“Not for a long time, Toni. Not for a long time.”

“God,” Toni said, finally pulling away and wiping her tears.  _ Weak,  _ she thought,  _ and you’re rubbing your eyeliner away,  _  but at that moment, she didn’t care. (The cameras clicked away.) Rhodey was red-eyed as well. “It’s been really hard without you.”

“Aw, I’m sure you did fine,” Rhodey teased. “How’s that big ol’ brain of yours doing?” DUM-E and U whirred around them, desperate for attention. Rhodey laughed and tugged the sign off DUM-E. “‘Welcome back honey-bear,’” he read aloud, and Toni beamed with pride. The letters were all sloppy and dripping with paint, so much so that it was hard to read. 

“They both wrote their own signs,” she said, “but I had to tell them what to say.”

“They’re beautiful,” Rhodey said and pulled her into another hug. Toni closed her eyes.  _ God, I missed you.  _

“I say: pizza, from the place you took me to that one weekend,” Rhodey declared. Toni grinned. 

“Richard’s Authentic Pizzeria,” she quoted and giggled. “The storeowner claims he’s a real, Italy-born Italian but really he’s some pasty white guy from Kansas, right?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oreos after,” she promised as they made their way out of the airport. The cameras seemed to understand they weren’t gonna get a kiss out of them so they dwindled out. 

The pizza place closed at 10:00 pm and it was already 9:17 when they got there and 3:48 am when they left. Toni offered to meet the amount of all their pizza sold that day, and suddenly they were willing. 

Walking home that night, DUM-E and U woefully rolling along (Toni worried the streets were rough on them), the two of them fed each other Oreos, elbow-linked-in-elbow. 

“Life has been suckish without you,” Toni said. Rhodey laughed and bit into his cookie. Toni wrinkled her nose at the sight of him. 

“You don’t dissect your Oreo?” she asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… you don’t pick off the top cookie and lick the frosting out and  _ then  _ eat the cookies?

“Ew. No. Why, you do that?”

“Of course!” Toni exclaimed and pulled away from him. DUM-E moved around in circles slowly, as if disappointed in Rhodes. Toni sure was. 

“Aw, does this mean we can’t date anymore?” Rhodey asked, feigning shock. Toni sniffed. 

“I’m breaking up with you,” she said, “Over your lack of decency with Oreos.”

“Rats,” Rhodey shouted and they both dissolved into giggles, and it was nice, and she was happy, and she supposed she liked being happy. It felt good. 

… 

In mid-November (Rhodey hadn’t left yet!), she decided to go take some classes at Cambridge University in England, a way to get away from all the press and the noise and the conferences and the work. Maybe she would study transcendent science and astronomy, a topic she’d always been interested in. Energy, too. Clean energy was so crucial to her in those days. Hopefully, it would carry with her later on in her life. 

She’d grown surprisingly closer with Maria the past few months or so. They barely saw each other face to face but talked on the phone quite often - Sunday nights, sometimes for ten minutes, sometimes to an hour. Maria was gentle and kind, qualities Toni wondered she would ever have, and even though her mother always seemed distant in Toni’s childhood the woman became more interested in Toni’s current work. Sometimes Howard would go on the phone with her as well and the three of them would engage in a tight conversation. They, especially Maria, expressed pride in Toni’s accomplishments. 

The two of them never stopped surprising her. 

Anyways, Rhodey agreed to come with her. Obie promised he’d take care of DUM-E and U. Upon arriving in Cambridge, the two of them quickly found an apartment. They weren’t exactly sure how long they were going to be in England, but Toni had made plans to return back to New York for Christmas, so probably around the 15th of December. 

Rhodey reluctantly signed up for the lectures Toni was attending so that she didn’t go alone (he was her savior, after all). He claimed he didn’t have one interest in stars, but after the first lecture was over his eyes were shining. 

England was something else, truly. The architecture in Cambridge was breathtakingly beautiful and breathtakingly ancient. The city was all towers and small villages and tightly wound paths and markets bustling with food. It was almost like Italy, except Italy was  _ Italy  _ and Cambridge wasn’t color. But still. Beautiful. 

People still recognized her, people still praised her, people still teased her. It was all the same, and Toni didn’t complain. Much. She was used to it, after all. 

She wondered if Rhodey heard her screams in the opposite bedroom late at night. She wondered how many sleeping pills it took to knock you out for a good 24 hours. Oh, well. 

… 

Maria was singing. 

_ “Try to remember a time in September/When grass was green…” _

Had she ever sung to Toni before?

The blanket was tugged off of her. 

“Wake up dear, and say goodbye to your father,” said Maria. Toni groaned and sat up, vaguely aware of a Santa hat on her head. 

“Who’s the homeless person on the couch?” asked Howard, buttoning up his dark suit. Toni faked a smile and stood, looking her father in the eye. She’d returned from Cambridge a day before and said goodbye to Rhodey. She was going back to her own apartment (where Rhodey was granted a bedroom) on the 26th and Rhodey wanted to spend Christmas with his own parents, so they would see each other around the 30th. 

“This is why I love coming home for Christmas, right before you leave town,” Toni said cheekily. Howard glared at her, but there was a faint hint of amusement in his eyes. It was true: Maria and Howard were leaving for a few days, even after Toni had agreed to come so early. Toni saw no point in going back to the apartment if it was only for a few nights so she decided to just stay in the house for the entirety of the visit. 

“Be nice dear,” said Maria before Howard could retort, “She’s been studying abroad.”

“Really? Which broad, what’s her name?” Howard said and ripped the hat off of her head. Toni bit back a scoff. 

“Candice,” she replied and recalled bright red hair and murky brown eyes. Candice had long fingers and soft skin. 

“Do me a favor,” said Howard, “Try not to burn the house down before Monday.”

“Oh, okay, so it’s Monday.  _ That  _ is good to know; I will plan my toga party accordingly.” She inhaled and stood behind Maria, who was still seated at the piano. “Where are you going?”

“Your father’s flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway,” her mother replied.

“We might have to make a quick stop,” Howard interjected. 

“At the Pentagon,” said Toni. She remembered one time in her brief high school experience she had hacked into the Pentagon's servers on a dare. Damn, that was fun. “Right?” Howard nodded. Toni leaned in and murmured in Maria’s ear, rather teasingly, “Don’t worry, you’re gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary.”

“You know they say sarcasm is a metric for potential,” Howard muttered. Toni grimaced and turned away, going to lean on the door. “If that’s true you’ll be a great woman someday.” And here she thought he was finally starting to  _ like  _ her. “I’ll get the bags,” he finished and left the room.

“He does miss you when you’re not here,” Maria whispered.

_ I’m going to miss you. _

_ Say something, or you’re going to regret it.  _

_ I love you, dad.  _

_ Do I? _

_ I know you tried. I know you did the best you could.  _

_ Did you? _

Howard returned with the bags and Maria kissed Toni’s cheek. 

Then they left. 

… 

She got the call at approximately 5:17 am, December 17th, 1991. She didn’t recognize the voice. 

She arrived at the coroner’s office to ID the bodies. He only showed their faces, nothing from the neck down. She wondered what there was to hide. 

“Miss Stark?” the coroner murmured. She stared at the two of them. Lifeless and pale and bloodied and bruised. She wanted to correct him - it’s Dr. Stark. She had numerous PhDs. But she couldn’t find the words.

“Yes,” was all she said. “Yes, it’s them.”

She didn’t call Rhodey. Didn’t want to take him away from his family like she had done so many years ago. But the newspapers were out the next day and he showed up at the mansion a few hours after he left the first voicemail. 

They said the crash happened on the 16th on a back road somewhere. She didn’t really care. 

… 

There were too many people at the funeral. 

Toni passed on the responsibility of planning it to Obadiah so that the only thing she had to focus on was drinking and forgetting. Anyways. There were too many people at the funeral.  

There were too many flowers and too many tears and too many weepy faces. Too many  _ I’m so sorry for your loss  _ and too many  _ Call me if you need anything, yeah?  _ and too many  _ Howard never mentioned me?  _ and too many  _ I can’t even imagine what you’re going through _ . It was unfittingly sunny. For a while, Toni thought that it was a requirement that it had to rain for funerals. Like, if it wasn’t raining and depressing during a funeral then it didn’t count as a sad time. 

Peggy Carter was there. Peggy, Peggy, oh Peggy, with her bright-red lipstick and graying hair and fierce attitude. Toni had seen her a few times in the space between Jarvis’s death and the Stark funeral. She offered her condolences, as did everyone else, but actually looked Toni in the eye as she said it and gripped Toni’s gloved hands.

“Be strong,” she whispered. Toni didn’t smile or laugh or respond, and Peggy took her seat. 

Howard and Maria Stark’s death was all of the news, and rightfully so. Stark Industries was perhaps the biggest weapon-producing company in America, maybe even in the world, and all of a sudden his name was ripped right out from under the world and he was  _ dead.  _

He was  _ dead.  _

And a new Stark was about to take his place. 

… 

Toni expected him not to leave anything for her. He would leave everything to Obie. She expected Maria to leave her the sentiments, as Jarvis did Peggy - maybe a few thousand, maybe her clothes,  _ maybe.  _

She was wrong. 

She was given the house, she was given the money, she was given all the rights to the company. She was given the responsibility of finding Captain America. Her, her, and only her. 

That night, she unlocked the door to the Captain America room. To Steve Rogers. She had to find him now, she had to find him and she had to bring him back because he was now her purpose because now he had to be her legacy because now Howard’s legacy was  _ her  _ and she was  _ shit  _ and she, and she, and she - 

“Fuck you,” she told the picture of him and the soldiers and took his shield. He was not going to be her legacy. He was not going to be her legacy. Because she hated him, because she hated him for being so goddamn heroic and so goddamn perfect and everything she could never be, and everything Howard wanted her to be, but Howard was dead now, and Maria was dead now, and she was  _ free  _ and so she  _ hated  _ Captain America. 

She couldn’t help but take the shield though. 

… 

She promised the staff she would find new jobs for them as soon as the week was over. They were terrified they were going to be fired. As she was, technically, a billionaire now, she gave them each (a total of seven) a check of 100,000. She wished she could give more. 

She caught one of them as they all made their way out. 

“Listen,” she began, a bit hesitant, “Would you be interested staying and living in the mansion? T-to preserve it. I don’t want to sell it, and I don’t want to give away all its contents, and I’ll pay you -”

“Of course,” the woman said with a smile in her eyes. “I’m truly sorry for your loss, ma’am. Howard was good to us.”

It pained Toni to hear those words. 

… 

It was late at night, and Obadiah Stane had to make a call. 

“Hello? Yeah, it’s me.”

He took a sip of his beer and sat down in the leather chair. “Yeah, the old man’s dead.” He laughed. “I know, I know. No, nothing for me.” 

He felt like smashing the bottle in his fist. 

“He left it all to the bitch.” A pause. “Yeah, you know, the same bitch who’s taking over the company come May. Not if I can help it,” he added with a smirk. “Oh, you know how she is. She won’t last in SI.” Another pause. “I know.” Then, “All in due time. Don’t worry, kid, don’t worry, I have everything under control.” 

He listened to the one on the other end for a while, nodding along while they spoke. 

“And I trust you'll make the preparations?"

The person replied with a curt  _of course_ , and Obadiah's smile grew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes. well. that happened.  
> those who know the comics (i will admit, i'm not well-versed in all of the storylines but i have fandom wiki), any guesses as to who was on the phone call? also, i may have had some foreshadowing as to what Obadiah's true intentions with Toni's designs during the gun range scene. also, as you can see i made the age that toni was when her parents were killed by 20, not 21.  
> thoughts on the chapter? thanks so much for reading and i hope you all have a wonderful day!


	7. chapter seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> something cold happens on a snowy day in a snowy alley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! i had a very busy week and a half. the chapter's a little shorter than normal but i hope you like it.

Toni couldn’t sleep. 

It wasn’t like this was anything new for her - it was a miracle if she managed to get five, six hours of sleep a night if that. The high rise apartment, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, caught the moonlight perfectly, in a way so that it washed any wall that wasn’t already covered in glass. And so Toni saw it fit for her to just lie on her back the entire night, watching the way the moonlight shifted during each passing out, watched how it illuminated Cap’s shield.

She wondered if there would be a day that she could hang the real shield up in her bedroom. Hopefully,  hopefully, but Obadiah would probably make her donate it to the company itself and not be selfish like she always was. 

She just wished that she could see the stars.

It had been two months since the death of Howard and Maria Stark. It was now February 24th, which meant that in around three months, she would be taking over the company. And the only thing the public saw her as was a genius, billionaire, playgirl philanthropist. Maybe not the philanthropist part, as most of her donations were made anonymously. For the past three, five years she’d been mostly off the grid in terms of her accomplishments and her designs. Sure, she would win a medal, and that might get a paragraph or two in the local paper, but the real news was who she was sleeping with. 

But all of a sudden, she was all the rage. 

She didn’t really have anything to provide for them. She was all empty bottles, messy hair and a messier workshop. An entire lifetime of hopes forgotten and legs that wouldn’t stop getting longer. She was tinted sunglasses and gloved hands and unhealthy grieving methods. She really wasn’t interesting.

Toni hadn’t stepped foot in the mansion once in those months. She left it to be taken care of by Rose, who, in her opinion, was doing splendidly and hadn’t stolen anything. Not that Toni would care. 

Unless she touched the Captain America room.

Rhodey was unclear as to when he would have to leave again, whether it be to the base or on a mission. She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want him to go. 

She expected to have at least one conference a week with the board, but Obadiah tried as hard as he could to limit it to around three a month, which was bullshit. If she was going to become the new CEO, then she needed to set a reputation. Too bad at the moment it was simply that she went to way too many parties and that she drank way too much. 

And then there was that night. It was a bitter March night, a blizzard swirling in the midst. The wind snapped at Toni’s cheeks and played around her coat. Barely anyone was out walking, which was a surprise, as New Yorkers never stopped for anything less than a hurricane. She had just returned from a shopping trip - she was trying to redo her look, as for the past year or so she’d avoided the fancy and powerful outfits and had gone for the grease-smeared tanks. But she needed fancy and powerful outfits and fancy and powerful makeup if she was going to be regarded as fancy and powerful. 

Toni decided to take a back route, one that went between apartment buildings as a way to shield herself from the wind and the snow. 

She was fifteen minutes into her walk - damn, she should’ve taken a taxi - and the alleyway never seemed to end. Had she ever walked this way before? She wondered if people could see out of the windows around her. She wondered if the main road was nearby. She wondered why this alleyway was so long. 

She wondered if that was footprints she heard behind her. She wondered if snow could muffle heavyset boots.

She wondered if this was pain she felt as the knife passed through her back. She wondered if it was an icicle. Wouldn’t that be a better weapon? It would soon melt and the evidence would disappear. 

She wondered if there was any place as cold as the floor of the alleyway, surrounded by a good five inches of snow, snow that choked her, snow that soothed her. She wondered if her blood pooling around her was what was keeping her warm. She wondered if they did it to rob her or to kill her or to rape her, but she didn’t hear anything else, and she didn’t really feel anything else either. She wondered if she was dying. No, that wouldn’t do, she hadn’t made a will yet. She didn’t have a successor. 

It was kind of hard to see, staring up at the gray sky with all the snow falling down, but she didn’t want to close her eyes. Was she afraid? No, she wasn’t a coward. She was strong. She would be strong. 

She wondered if she was being moved. She wondered if she could hear screams. She wondered if the face of those screams knew who she was. 

Was, was, was. 

_ No.  _

No, she wouldn’t die like this. 

But was she dying?

She dreamed of green green eyes and quick kisses on the palms of scarred hands. And it was nice. And she missed Jarvis. Missed his voice, missed his hands, missed soft murmurings and late nights and soothing melodies carried through memories.  _ It was so cold.  _ She missed Rhodey, too, missed their days spent together underwater, where everything was numb and muted and beautiful. She missed -

God, why couldn’t she  _ see?  _

_ It was dark, dark, so dark, and so white at the same time, and she was blind, and she was blind, and there were so many stars laid out before. Painted on a canvas and lit by a fire burst of nothingness. _

 

* * *

 

“Damn,” was the first word she said. 

Rhodey immediately leaped from his chair and moved to hug her. “Oh, baby girl, I was so scared, I was so scared, don’t you ever do that again -”

“Ow,” Toni complained (rather loudly), and Rhodey pulled away quickly. 

“Sorry,” he chattered, “But I was so scared Toni, and you looked so small, and they said that you lost a lot of blood, and -”

“I’m sorry,” Toni interjected, “but can I but in?”

Rhodey nodded. He looked like an anxious yet eager puppy ready to attend to Toni’s every need. 

“I have two questions,” Toni continued.  _ Everything hurt,  _ she thought. “One: what happened?”

Rhodey took a deep breath. God, she loved him, her savior. “You were…” he paused. Toni raised her eyebrows. “Well, you were stabbed,” he said as if it was the most idiotic and unrealistic thing he’d ever said. Toni supposed it was. “In the back. And some old lady saw a bunch of blood on the ground from her window and found you. You were hypothermic from practically being covered in snow and had lost a lot of blood.”

“A positive,” said Toni. Rhodey nodded.

“We don’t know who attacked you,” he said. “The police are investigating. You’ll have to stay in the hospital for a while so you can properly heal.”

“Fuck,” Toni groaned, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “Does the press know about it? Have they gotten any pictures?”

“Your legal team -”  _ holy shit, I have a legal team? Another thing Howard left me, I guess.  _ “Have been working to delete all the coverage, but the public knows that you’re in the hospital. We’re trying to stop the police from leaking why, though.”

“Has anyone gotten into the wing?” asked Toni. Rhodey grinned and gestured to the closed door. 

“There’s this one guy, this hospital security guard who’s been outside your room the entire time you’ve been here.”

“Yeah? What’s his name?”

“Mr. Hogan, get in here,” Rhodey called, and the door swung open. In stepped a stout, white man looking ready to mess some people up. 

“Toni, this is Harold Hogan,” Rhodey introduced. “Harold Hogan, this is Toni Stark.”

“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” said Hogan. “I’m glad to see you’re awake.” Toni grinned. 

“Jim here tells me that you’ve been watching over me during my stay,” she said. “This true?” 

Hogan nodded quite seriously. “Yes, ma’am. Your safety is my priority.”

“I like the sound of that,” Toni murmured. 

“Ma’am?”

“Call me Toni,” said Toni. “And congratulations. You’re now my personal bodyguard and head of my security team, which I’m lacking, along with Stark Industries’ security. How much are you being paid here?” Hogan opened his mouth but she cut him off before he could say anything. “Don’t answer that. Just… whatever you’re making, I’ll triple, quadruple it.”

“Money won’t be an issue, Toni,” he quickly assured her. “It’s, uh, it’s a pleasure to be working for you.”

“You don’t seem very happy,” Toni noted with a smile. “Listen, Happy, I’m - well, I was just fuckin stabbed and I’m also really tired. Could you go resume your position…?”

“Of course, Dr. Stark,” he said, and left the room. 

“He’s a delight,” Rhodey muttered. Toni beamed. 

“Oh, I like him.”

“Are you serious about the whole tired thing? Cause I can leave or something, I can go get the nurse to give you more morphine -”

“Don’t leave,” Toni pleaded before Rhodey was even finished. She was embarrassed to admit she didn’t want him to leave her for fear of - for fear of - for fear of - “But more painkillers would be great.”

Before Toni dozed off again, Rhodey took her hand.

“You almost died, Tones,” he whispered. Toni smiled faintly. 

“I can’t die,” she weakly protested her voice heavy with sleep. “You know that. I'm fine, Rhodey. It was just a scare.”

“You almost died,” he said again, even quieter. 

_ Don’t remind me. _

 

* * *

 

_ Fuck,  _ she thought. She was alone again. And she almost died. Fuck, she almost  _ died.  _ Sure, she had been through near-death experiences before, but that was - that was - that was  _ Howard.  _ Those hands were hands intend on hurting her, hands searching her body for weak spots that would  _ destroy her,  _ hands that punched and hands that choked, and hands and hands and feet coming down on faces, not -

Not a knife. Not a masked being whose only purpose was to kill her. A masked being who maybe still out there, because Howard was gone and Maria was gone and Jarvis was gone, Javis her protector, Jarvis, Jarvis, Jarvis, she was  _ alone,  _ she was  _ alone,  _ and they could still be out there, they could still come back, they could still come and  _ hurt  _ her, they could -

What was happening?

She couldn’t breathe. 

She couldn’t breathe. 

She couldn’t see. 

She couldn’t -

“Hey Toni, the doctor said it’s alright for you to eat something, so I brought you some Oreos and a turkey sandwich.”

She blinked. 

_ Oh, Rhodey. My savior.  _

“Just what I wanted,” she declared, wincing at the unmistakable quiver in her voice. Rhodey glanced at her - did he catch it? - and handed her the food. She slowly chewed the sandwich, constantly moaning and letting her eyes roll back in her head. “God, this has got to be the best sandwich of my  _ life. _ ”

And then she remembered the knife. And the cold. And the snow. And the wondering. 

“Trash please,” she weakly muttered. Rhodey furrowed his eyebrows. 

“Wha-?”

But her stomach had already heaved and the contents were spewed across her lap. 

“Shit, oh shit, oh shit, uh, sorry Toni, sorry, um, nurse! Yeah, hi, my friend just threw up, yeah -”

Toni leaned back and closed her eyes, letting a small tear roll from the corner of her eye down her cheek. She was  _ tired.  _ She was tired, she was so tired, and there was a growing pain piercing through her abdomen, and she wasn’t strong, no - no, she wasn’t strong. 

Rhodey stroked her hair as the nurse cleaned her up. 

“I’m sorry,” Toni murmured. Her voice broke. She hated it. 

“Don’t be sorry, Tones,” whispered Rhodey. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You can sleep now, baby girl. You can sleep now.”

So she did.

 

* * *

 

She was discharged a week later, Mr. Happy Hogan and Jim Rhodey at her side. They left the building through the back entrance to avoid attention. The only thing the press really knew was that she was in the hospital and most likely hurt. Happy was relentless in not letting them past. 

Obie met them outside, a goofy and oddly sickening grin on his face as he took her in: all legs shaking under a flimsy hospital blanket, tangled hair spilling out around her shoulders, an abdomen wrapped in stinking gauze, gaunt cheeks, and pale skin etched with too many scars. Lips unmarked by lipstick and left to freeze in the revealing air, wrapped with a feeble smile. A small body curled up in a squeaky wheelchair. He can see every inch of her, and yet - 

_ you can’t see me at all.  _

She wondered if she remembered to put concealer on.

“You’re alive!” Obadiah announced, throwing his arms up in the air. Toni smirked. 

“Sorry to disappoint, Obie,” she said with a laugh. God, her body  _ hurt.  _

Obie smiled and took her by the hands. “I was worried,” he said. “That fella over there wouldn’t let me see you,” and he gestured at no-nonsense Happy Hogan. “What happened, exactly?”

“Nothing much,” she said. “But I’m here now, and I’m fine, and I’m ready to get to work come May 29th.” A grin spread across her face at the sight of Obie’s own falling. 

“Right,” he mumbled. “Well, I don’t want you to stress over it. Focus on getting better and stronger, yeah? The board -”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Toni asked with a tilt of her head. “I said I’m fine. I’m great, even. And I’m ready to get to work come May 29th.”

Rhodey dissolved into chuckles as he rolled her out to the car, and Toni hoped that Happy, too, was smiling. Had she ever seen him smile before, in that brief week and a half they had known each other?

“That was great,” Rhodey blubbered as he helped her into the backseat. “But he has a point, Tones. You need to get better. The - the stab wound is still healing; I don’t want you getting even more hurt than you are now.”

“Your apartment, Dr. Stark?” Happy called. 

“Yes, please. And it’s Toni.”

She couldn’t help but flinch as Rhodey’s hand passed over her cheek. 

“Where’d you get these scars?” he murmured and something pressed down on Toni’s chest. 

“Workshop,” she said with a wink.

 

* * *

 

What was Captain America like in real life?

She knew he was brave. He fought valiantly, so the storybooks said. He was loyal, too; he wouldn’t leave Bucky. He wouldn’t leave her, either, if he met her. Right? And he must’ve been kind. He must’ve been so, so kind, and caring, and he wouldn’t hurt her. No, he would never hurt her. He would never leave her out in the cold, alone in scared, like so many had done before. He and Bucky - they’d be her best friends because Steve must be like that. He must try to make friends with every person he meets, and he’d treat them right. 

She still hated him, though. 

That didn’t mean she couldn’t help but stare at his shield into the early hours of the morning (not because she couldn’t sleep, not because of the memory of a cold, cold place, surrounded by snow, not because she wanted something familiar to hang on to). 

The next day, she got to work. 

Toni called Rhodey and Happy into the main foyer of her penthouse: an open, circular room decorated with stretched windows, a bar, and several sitting areas and a view that triumphed any other. 

“You’re not twenty-one yet, ma’am,” said Happy, shooting an accusing glance at Toni’s glass of scotch. Toni rolled her eyes. 

“Please, Harold,” she said extravagantly. “You’re my bodyguard, not my mother.”

“I thought it was Happy,” Rhodey noted, falling against one of the couches. “But he’s right. And you should really be resting, Toni. The doctors said -”

“The doctors don’t know shit about the work I have to do,” Toni grunted. “We have stuff to do. Come on, boys, rally around me.” She dumped a stack of papers on the table and leaned against it, a subtle way of getting off her feet and easing the dagger-like pain. 

“Happy, you can go,” Rhodey said. “Don’t get involved in her shit.”

“Aw, Happy, stay,” Toni whined. “C’mon. It’ll be fun. I’m buying this entire tower!”

The two of them stared at her. 

“What?” Rhodey whispered. 

“Yeah! It’s gonna be the new Stark Industry headquarters. What do you think? Big tower, great location, better view. I’ll still live up here and all of my workers will be right here. I think I’m gonna keep ten or so floors empty as living quarters - I mean, this place has got its own helicopter pad and everything - I need a helicopter, hm, Happy, add that to the list - and it’ll be more like the business headquarters, with more  _ me -” _

“Toni!” Rhodey snapped and Toni shut up. 

“Yes, honey bear?”

“Slow down,” he said. “This - this is a big step. A  _ huge  _ step. I don’t think you know what you’re saying. You’re not even CEO yet - if you buy it now, you’re just going to have an empty tower sitting around. You’re not thinking clearly, Toni, why don’t you just sit down -”

“Hush, honey bear,” Toni snapped. Rhodey glared. “I know what I’m doing. Stark Industries is going to grow, Rhodey, and it’s gonna be big.” She took a step back and closed her eyes, slowly breathing in and letting a smile settle on her face. “It’s gonna be great. I can see it, Rhodes, a new era for my father’s company. Except now -” and she opened her eyes - “It’s  _ mine. _ ”

“May I suggest a different living area, then?” Happy butted in. Toni blinked and glanced at him. 

“What?”

“No disrespect, Sta-Toni,” Happy corrected, “But I don’t feel comfortable - listen, If I’m going to be the head of security I can’t have you just wandering around in your own headquarters. You need a house, a good house, a place with state-of-the-art security.”

“So that no one can stab you in the back again,” Rhodey added. Toni felt something crash down inside her. “I like how you’re thinking, Happy. I’m talking: a moat, some helicopters hovering around, alligators roaming the lawn, tigers at every entrance. You need some tripwire, yeah? Maybe some system to watch over you, you know? To protect you.”

“I’m not in danger,” Toni shot back. “My tower is fine. For now.”

_ Some system to watch over me.  _

_ To protect me.  _

“But a vacation house sounds good,” she mumbled. 

_ Jarvis. _

 

* * *

 

Happy and Rhodey just wouldn’t relent on the idea of a private sanctuary for her. 

“Maybe somewhere in the countryside?” Rhodey would suggest at dinner when Toni was trying to look over plans for  _ her  _ tower - the one she already owned (and the one she bought soon after their first conversation without any of them knowing). “What about in California? By the water, maybe?”

“Yeah, sure,” Toni muttered, marking down the specific floors she wanted to remain as apartments - maybe workshops. 

Rhodey came up behind her and kissed the top of her head. Toni allowed herself a quick smile before pushing him away. 

“Go, I’m busy,” Toni shouted. Rhodey scoffed. 

“Malibu it is,” he said and left her alone in that great empty space.

 

* * *

 

She woke at two in the morning.

Flipping the blankets off her body, feeling as if something was pressing down on her chest, she gazed down at the mess of blood around her. At first, she thought she had gotten her period early, but there was so much blood, and where was Steve? Shouldn’t he be here? And Jarvis? And Rhodey? No one to save her, no one to protect her. 

There was o moon that night, nothing to shine upon Steve’s shield, nothing to hold on to. Something very warm and very sticky latched onto her abdomen. Her head felt very light like she was flying. She’d always wanted to smile. If she just spread her arms -

In the bathroom, in the fluorescent light, she wrapped gauze around the torn stitches and the gaping wound. Blood leaked through instantaneously, so she kept wrapping, even when her head felt even lighter, even when she was  _ sure  _ she must be soaring through the air somewhere. The pressure stayed, even as she drowned herself in blood alcohol (how literal). It pressed down on her chest, her heart, her mind until suddenly she just couldn’t  _ breathe.  _

She was stumbling around the darkness, hand pressed on the glass, wondering if there was any blood left in her body. Stumbling around, calling weakly for someone to calm her,  _ hold  _ her, tell her it’s all going to be okay, tell her to breathe, tell her to breathe, tell her they love her - 

_ Jarvis.  _

_ Jarvis.  _

_ J.A.R.V.I.S.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well.   
> toni was stabbed, met happy, and had a panic attack. and a prelude to JARVIS? maybe :)  
> please comment below and tell me what you thought! what would you all like to see in future chapters?


	8. chapter eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two meetings occur.

“Jesus Christ, Toni, what happened to you?

1,720 mistakes in her lifetime.

Rhodey found her the next day, sprawled across the floor in front of the grand windows on one of the catwalks, surrounded by liquor (blood alcohol), loose gauze, drops of blood. A half-made sniper rifle lay scattered around her.

Toni grunted and pulled herself up, smirking at her friend.

“Hey honey bear,” she murmured. “Good morning.”

“I’ll say it again,” Rhodey said, “What _happened?”_

 _“_ _я не знаю,”_ Toni groaned.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, this time in English, and rubbed her eyes. “I-I can’t really remember.”

“Yeah, no shit. How much did you drink?”

“I think my stitches came undone or something,” she offered. Rhodey sighed.

“Shit. Do, uh, do you know how? I mean, those doctors weren’t fooling around. They know how to stitch fucking stab wounds.”

Toni grimaced. “No. I don’t.”

“Let me have a look at it,” said Rhodey.

“No, Rhodey, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“Toni,” Rhodey growled, his voice slipping into a “warning” tone. She rolled her eyes and began to tear the gauze off her torso.

“Christ, Toni,” Rhodey said, leaning in and squinting his eyes. Dried blood crusted over the opening areas but the red still glistened. “They’re all torn up. You must have been moving a lot and they got caught on something in your bed or something.”

“Must have.”

“Do you know why you would’ve been thrashing? Like -” his voice became a whisper “- were you having… a nightmare, maybe?”

God, why did he have to sound so fucking nervous about it? So fucking full of pity?

“No,” Toni snapped, a little harsher than she intended. “N-no. Sorry. I don’t have nightmares.”

_Nights spent shivering, drenched in her own sweat, trying to conjure up an image of Steve in her head._

_Someone’s hands on her throat, someone’s boots against her hips, the stench of alcohol and burning flesh._

_Captain Fucking America, and somewhere very cold and very dark._

She managed a grin. “I’m neurotypical,” she announced. 

_Shaking hands and memories forgotten._

_Green, green eyes. Quick kisses gone too soon._

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “Then how else do you suppose this happened?”

“I move around a lot in my sleep,” Toni pouted defensively and winked. “You’ve never been in my bedroom, Rhodey, you don’t know what these could catch on. If you’d like a tour, maybe -”

“Alright that’s enough,” Rhodey huffed and grabbed her arms, forcing Toni to her feet. She winced with the pain and felt another small pulsing of blood rush out through one of the now-open scabs. “Let’s get you to the doctor.”

He offered her her coat.

Toni stared and cleared her throat. Rhodey’s eyes nodded and he dropped it on the table adjacent to them.

“Right, sorry Toni, sorry. I forgot.”

Toni sighed and flashed a smile. “No worries, honeybear. It’s a stupid thing, really.”

But she put the coat on nonetheless.

* * *

 

 

The doctors were unimpressed and unconvinced by her story about how she just “moved around a lot” when she was sleeping, but they didn’t dare question Toni Stark.

The man who redid her stitches was bald-head, plump, and red-faced. He grumbled a lot under his hot, stinking breath, mostly about someone named Marlee and a dipshit named Davison, and was forceful with the needle.

“You want me to numb it?” he mumbled before they began.

“I’m a grown woman; I can take the pain,” Toni quipped. She couldn’t help but grip Rhodey’s hand in her own gloved palm, however, when the needle was first shoved through her skin.

After twenty minutes or so he finished the last stitched and cleaned up the excess blood.

“Done,” he muttered and took off before Toni could say another word.

“Wow,” she said.

“He’s probably intimidated,” Rhodey suggested with a wink. He tugged on Toni’s arms and brought her out of the chair. “Let’s get out of here. Happy’s waiting in the car out front.”

“Shouldn’t he be _with_ me?” Toni complained, letting her Rhodey lead her through the hospital halls smelling too much of a familiar medicine. She blocked out the scent (the memory).

“He knows you’ve got me, Tones,” Rhodey said, sounding rather hurt. Toni padded his shoulder and grinned.

“And I’m very grateful,” she said, “but I’m not paying you.”

“I wouldn’t say no to a raise.”

“Ms. Stark, please sign here,” said a young nurse, scurrying forward and keeping her head down. She bared a clipboard with a few forms on it. “It’s just the hospital release forms - I know you weren’t here for much, but it’s protocol, I’m so sorry to bother you-”

“No worries,” Toni assured her, keeping her usual quip & and snark on the down-low. “Protocol is protocol, no matter who the patient is.” She signed the paper and smiled as the girl scattered away just as her phone began to ring.

“One sec,” she said to Rhodey. “I’ll meet you out there, yeah?”

“Not leaving you,” Rhodey said (quite stubbornly), and a sort of shadow passed over his face. Toni’s heart skipped a beat and she nodded.

“Right,” and she clicked ‘answer.’ “Hello?”

 _“Toni!”_ came Obie’s cheerful voice. Toni cringed; her hangover headache was still raging. _“So good to hear you. How about breakfast, you and I?”_

“Oh, uh, that sounds great Obadiah, I’m afraid that -”

“What does he want?” Rhodey asked, taking a step forward. Toni covered the speaker and waved him down.

“Just to go to breakfast,” she whispered. Rhodey shrugged.

“That sounds good. Bring me back a pancake if you go to that place we like on Park.”

“I don’t know if I want to go,” she hissed. Rhodey scowled.

“Listen, Toni, if you don’t go out and have some fun once and a while then you’re going to spend your life cooped up in that tower of yours.”

“Okay, first of all: the reason I’m stuck there is that you and Happy won’t let me do anything. Second of all, I’m preparing to run a company. Third of all - breakfast with Obie isn’t ‘fun.’”

_“Toni? You still there?”_

“Yeah, hold on.”

“Happy will wait outside in the car,” said Rhodey, “and I’ll be a phone call away if you need anything.”

Toin groaned. “I’m not going to a conference or anything. It’s breakfast with Obadiah. I’ll manage. He’ll just want to talk about the company.”

She retreated the hand from the speaker.

“Sounds great, Obie. Where do you wanna meet?”

 

* * *

 

Much to Rhodey (and frankly, Toni)’s disappointment, the two of them did not go to that breakfast place on Park. Instead, they went to a regular diner somewhere off of Broadway. In all fairness, it was a cute joint with checkered tables and red leather cushions and regular people - bearded bikers with ripped jackets, wailing children and stressed mothers, laughs carried out through the room.

Obadiah was already seated and waved to her as she strode in, trying (hopefully not failing) to hide her limp. He stood to greet her, perhaps envelope her in a hug, but she sat quickly before he had the chance to. Nonetheless, his smile never wavered.

“So?” he said, opening his hands whilst leaning on his elbows. “How’re you feeling? Getting stronger? Getting the rest you need? I hope you don’t feel obligated to work, Toni, not while you’re hurt -”

“I’m fine, Obie, thank you,” Toni said. “Never better. You?”

He paused, taking her words in. Then, “Great, Toni, I’m just great. And it’s great you’re feeling better. But, Toni dear,” and he took her hands in his (much to her discomfort), “I don’t want you to stress yourself out any more than you should be. We’re all very excited for you to start work next year, but if you’re not up for it -”

“May,” Toni interrupted. Obadiah blinked.

“Sorry?”

Toni retracted her hands and laid one on his forearm. “I’m going to work in May,” she said sweetly. “Well, I’m officially working in May. Right on my birthday. I’ve already begun preparations, though.” She let out a long exhale and leaned back, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. “Laying out ground plans for the tower - have I told you about that? Looking over my worker positions, some interviews, maybe even an assistant. Or two. I prefer the long-legged type,” she joked. Wondered who would take her seriously. (Probably a lot of people.)

Obadiah stared at her, dumbfounded, for a few moments. “I - uh, Toni, do you really think that’s the best idea? I mean, I’ve grown so comfortable with the workers in these past months, they really do trust me, and it’s gonna be real hard for them to go from orders by me to -”

“You’ll still be my business partner, Obie,” Toni said, tilting her head. A sickly sweet smile spread. “You’ll still be on the board. I mean, I’m sure it won’t be a problem for me to come in so soon. It’s my lawful right, isn’t it? Or whatever. I sure am excited.”

Obadiah’s jaw tightened but he forced a small smile. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. Not a problem. We’re all very excited.”

“I imagine a new ear for Stark Industries, Obie, just think about it,” said Toni with a new breath of excitement. The aching pain of her new stitches and aging wound slipped away. “New developments, not just weapons. I’ve never been that interested in them, to tell you the truth. Technology is where the world’s going.”

“What are you proposing, Toni? We can’t just cut off the weapons supply. That’s outrageous.”

“They’re for war,” Toni urged. “Weapons: they’re inhumane.”

“We sell them to the government,” he reminded her. “We don’t pull the trigger.”

Toni sighed. “Anyways. I see a peaceful future, if that makes sense. One built from advancements in technology and medicine and ways to cure world problems.”

“Unrealistic,” Obadiah muttered. Toni ignored him.

“I understand why we have to continue building weapons - I have many ideas, trust me - but why stop there? Stark Phones aren’t enough. Like I said, we can do great things with the way things are going. Send out medication to cities and diseased villages, take care of children, institute government services for the homeless -”

“Toni,” Obadiah jut in, shutting her up. Toni hated being shut up. “Listen to me. What you’re saying… they’re great ideas, they really are, but no one’s going to react the way I am: civil, willing to have a discussion. The men out there, they’re like sharks. They don’t like change.”

“Sucks for them,” Toni said with a shrug.

“Anything to drink?” said the waitress.

“A water and beer for me,” said Toni. Obadiah cleared his throat.

“Uh, just water for me.”

“I’ll also have Belgiangian waffles, triple the strawberries, and… uh… some of that coffee cake,” she said and handed the menu back to the woman.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” said Obadiah. “So what was this about the tower?”

Toni offered up her open hands as an answer. “Look,” she said, “I wanna keep the production at my father’s warehouses. That I’m not going to change. But the headquarters now… it’s at some crappy ass old building somewhere in the West End, right? Or near Central Park?”

“You’ve been going there your entire life, Toni. You should know where it is.”

“Irrelevant. Anyways, my tower - which I’m going to name Stark Tower or something - state-of-the-art. It’s great. It’s perfect. Almost as big as the Empire State Building, overshadowed only by the Twin Towers. It’s the perfect location, great views, everything. The name _Stark_ will shine over New York City.

“Huge windows, open spaces, an enormous lobby. It’s got all we need. The central offices will be located there after construction is finished. I’m keeping the levels below mine as apartments, just in case. It’ll be great, Obie, just you wait.”

“That sounds ridiculous, Toni,” Obadiah exasperated. “You’re blowing things out of proportion. You’re the CEO of the company -”

“I'm a _Stark_ ,” Toni said. “I run Stark Industries. I make the decisions, Obadiah. I do what I think is best for the company. And this… this is what’s best. It’s not even a big change, just a relocation of headquarters. I have bigger things coming, don’t worry.”

Obadiah waited until her waffles came, possibly so that he could get a word in without her interrupting, and said: “Listen, Toni, I support you if you truly think it’s right. But you’re still not officially CEO yet. Yes, the company’s under your name, but for now… it’s Stane Industries.”

“Nope,” Toni said, mouth full. Obadiah laughed.

“Sorry, poor choice of words. But you know what I’m saying, right?”

“Of course,” Toni said. “You feel like my - sorry, _your_ workers won’t be comfortable having a woman in charge. Especially a woman like _me._ And you don’t want me making any decisions.”

“Now Toni, you know that’s not what I mean -”

A man started yelling at a young girl a few booths down from them.

Obadiah’s words faded out, everything tunneled in.

_Howard, Howard, Howard._

Suddenly, she couldn’t feel her hand. Suddenly, all she could hear was the sound of glass shattering.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, jumping up. Luckily the water didn’t spill onto her skirt, but it did make a mess on the floor and the seat; not the mention the glass.

“Damn, Toni, what happened?”

“So sorry,” Toni blurted to the waitress as she rushed towards them. “My hand slipped. I’ll pay for the glass.”

“Oh, no worries,” the woman assured her. “Your food will be out soon.”

She and Obie were moved to the seat across from them. The yelling had ceased; the people of the diner only had ears for the shattered glass. There were too many eyes on her.

_Damn, Toni, what happened?_

Her heart was beating too fast, and the room was spinning to fast, and _damn, Toni, what happened?_

“You okay there? Gave me a little scare,” Obie chuckled. Toni laughed with him.

“Yeah. The glass was kind of slippery. You were saying?”

“I -” he stopped abruptly, interrupted by his phone ringing. “Sorry, I gotta take this.”

“Go right ahead,” Toni said with a smile. Obadiah headed over to the back of the restaurant.

Toni waited in silence and hate half of her belgian waffles in silence, waiting for the man to return, trying to block out the memory of the yelling.

Her own phone rang not long after Obadiah left.

“Hello?”

_“Toni, dear, how are you?”_

“Who is this?”

_“Peggy Carter. Don’t you remember?”_

Toni felt something exhale.

“Peggy. Peggy Carter. It’s good to hear your voice. How have you been?”

_“Quit the small talk, Toni. You know we both hate it. And nevermind me, anyways. Dear God, Toni, you were stabbed!”_

Toni went quiet. “How did you know?”

_“You underestimate me. Where are you know?”_

“You’re in New York? Um, some breakfast place on Park. A shitty diner but good waffles. I’m here with Obadiah; he’s on a call. The morning has gone excruciatingly painful.”

_“I’ll be there in one minute. We’re going shopping, dear, just you and I. And we need_

_to talk.”_

Toni left a note for Obadiah (where was he?), put a 100 dollars on the table, then wrapped the rest of her waffles in a napkin and stuffed them in her bag.

“Sorry for the glass!” she shouted and avoided the gaze of the yelling, yelling man.

_Damn, Toni, what happened?_

 

* * *

 

Peggy had changed.

Her hair was grayer, her face was creased with lines like crevasses on a cliff, and her shoulders seemed heavier, as if she was carrying a great burden. But her lipstick never looked redder and her eyes never looked brighter.

“You look good, despite the obvious,” the woman said. Toni let a smile flicker across herself.

“Hi, Peggy.”

Peggy tilted her head to one side with a slight frown. “Your face is packed with concealer, and yet no lipstick and no eyeliner. It’s not rubbed in correctly, either.”

Toni’s hand flew to her jawline. “I was in a hurry this morning,” she said, remembering her quickly trying to reapply what she had slept in the night before.

“Hm,” said Peggy. “Come. We have work to do.”

Peggy was silent in the taxi ride, leaving Toni to wonder where they might be going. The car pulled up in front of Bloomingdale's.

“We just have to fix what you’re wearing,” Peggy said, leading Toni out of the taxi after saying a quick thank you to the driver.

“I look wonderful,” said Toni stubbornly and rather ignorantly. “And when did you ever care for clothes? You’re not that type.”

“Please,” Peggy scoffed. “I thought I knew you better than that, Toni.”

“You don’t know me at all,” Toni shot back. Peggy raised an eyebrow.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Maybe we should change that.”

They stared at each other for a few moments before Peggy inhaled and motioned to the doors.

“You need to make a statement, Toni. Let’s go.”

Peggy continued her lecture as the two headed in.

“Listen, dear. I don’t know what Obadiah’s been saying to you, but don’t believe half of it. He’s right that there’s going to be some stigma - God, don’t your stitches hurt?”

“Hm?”

Toni twisted around to look at her back. “I don’t know. I guess. It’s kind of just a dull ache.” _Something I’m used to._ “No big deal. Continue.”

“Right,” said Peggy. “Anyways. He’s right that there’s going to be some stigma over you, a queer woman, being in charge of Stark Industries. Howard… was a great man. It’ll be hard to get over that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Toni dramatized. “Very hard. He was a great man. Great.”

Peggy glanced at her.

“This way, Ms. Carter,” said one of the workers, a short lady with plum cheeks and pretty brown hair. “Hello, Ms. Stark.”

“Hey, sweetheart,” Toni said with a grin. The worker smiled and lead them on their way.

“Comments like that will get you nowhere,” Peggy said.

“It’ll get me somewhere.”

Peggy huffed then fell silent.

“I just don’t know what you want from me,” said Toni. “I don’t know why we’re here. I don’t know what you do or don’t need me to do.”

Peggy whirled around and grabbed Toni by the shoulders.

“You need to be better,” she hissed. “Better than the men, better than Obadiah, better than me, better than Howard. You need to be _better_. You need to set a precedent that will follow you throughout your career. And you need to start with the way you look.”

“I thought that was against what the feminists are fighting for.”

“You need to be different, Toni. You need to be stronger than them. Besides, you’re already beautiful, so this won’t be a problem.”

Toni had gone shopping a couple weeks ago _(a cold, dark alley),_ but _(snow falling, knife gleaming)_ her clothes had gone _(red against white)_ and disappeared. Or rather, they were never recovered.

“Clothing today, especially in America, is so plain and boring,” said Peggy. “There’s not brightness to it, no originality, no character. There are jeans and sweaters and denim skirts.”

“Oh, yes, the number one problem with our country right now.”

“Don’t talk smart to your elders,” Peggy snapped with a smirk.

The two got to work. Heather, their guide for the day, had some trouble finding what Peggy considered to have “character.” A lot of the types were things Toni had worn before for fancier events:  Plain dresses, a leather jacket here or there, skirts tighter than Howard would’ve liked it. But nothing too different; sweatpants, tees. Nothing that had _character._

Peggy knew what had character, as she had it herself.

She chose bright, bold colors contrasted with the blackest of black and intermixed with the reddest of reds. Tight skirts and see-through tights and high-heels that went higher than Toni preferred.

“Your style is fine,” said Peggy, “but you’ve been lacking.”

“I got stabbed.”

“Before then. Ratty t-shirts and cargo pants. For your dirty workshop, that’s acceptable, but you can’t go out looking like _that._ ”

“I take personal offense,” said Toni (rather indignantly), “but I’ll allow it. Because I see your point.”

Peggy chuckled. “You dress better going to the club than you do going to a business meeting.”

“How do you know what I wear for both?”

“I’ve seen the headlines, dear. Whenever you’re going out, whether it’s to a party or a meeting, you must dress and act like you’re meant to be there. You must stand out, draw every eye towards _you_. It’d be best to dress fairly similar to opposite occasions. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Dress skimpy, like I’m going to hook up with a lady,” said Toni with a grin (and with an eye roll from Peggy, “and also like I’m going to propose our new rifle. Got it.”

Peggy sifted through their pile of clothes and sighed.

“Only a few of these will do,” she murmured.

“Fucking Bloomingdale’s and their uncharacterized clothes,” Toni snorted.

“Come. I know somewhere else we can go.”

 

* * *

 

“A thrift store? Come on, Peggy. I thought you wanted character.”

Peggy opened the double doors to the small shop tucked away in the depths of the city, then turned and smiled at Toni.

“This place has the most character of them all,” she said. “Hundreds of people heading through here, passing on their own clothes, their own possessions. Every piece in here has a meaning. They aren’t processed in a factory and then shipped out in plastic. They are worn and they are loved. They have _character._ ”

“If they loved them, why’d they give them up?” Toni grumbled. Peggy didn’t hear her.

The older woman strode through the aisles, as confident as if she was on the battlefield (Steve Rogers), grabbing random accessories and items of clothing and stuffing them into their cart.

“Hold on, now what are you choosing?” Toni demanding, struggling to keep up with her. She was out of breath and her back hurt. Her head ached.

After twenty minutes of Peggy shopping in silence and Toni complaining over most likely not liking any of the outfits or jewelry, Peggy pulled her aside and dumped the contents on the ground.

“Look,” she said, and so Toni did.

There were more leather jackets and loose, vibrant blouses. Short-shorts and shorter skirts, studded boots with cracks in the fabric. Small sunglasses tinted pink, tinted blue, tinted red or tinted gold. Toni picked through the collection with care, marveling at Peggy’s choices. There were even suits: suits, made for men like Obadiah and men like Howard Stark, but were now made for women like Peggy and women like Toni Stark.

“Wow,” she breathed out.

“Do you like them all? Even the sunglasses?”

Toni lifted a small tube of lipstick and gently plucked the top off, twisting the gold body to reveal a dark shade of wine-red lipstick.

“Like yours,” whispered Toni.

“Like mine,” said Peggy.

There was a hand on her shoulder.

_I can’t see._

There was a hand on her shoulder.

_They’re still out there._

There was a hand on her shoulder.

_It was so cold._

There was a hand on her shoulder.

_They’re still out there._

There was a hand on her shoulder.

_They’re still out there, she can’t see, she can’t see, they’re still out there, it was so, so cold -_

Toni yelped and jumped to her feet.

“Sorry to frighten you, ma’am,” said the little old lady with the pink apron. “Are you buying all that?”

_Wh-what?_

“We are,” said Peggy when Toni could not. She swallowed.

“You’ll have to pay for the lipstick before you use it,” the old lady said with a wag of her finger and waddled over to the back of the counter. “C’mon over here so I can check you out.”

“Let’s go, Toni dear,” Peggy said, and Toni nodded. Peggy handed her a bag and Toni declined. She didn’t like to be handed things.

_They’re still out there._

 

* * *

 

“So,” said Peggy.

They were seated at a restaurant, Toni’s Stark phone constantly ringing and blowing up with missed messages from an Obadiah Stane. The food was poor and the service was bad, but it was quiet there. Toni needed quiet.

“What happened today? What’s going on with you?”

“I’m fine,” Toni said.

“Are you sure? Because you don’t look fine, dear. At all.”

“I-I’m healed. I’m okay. She just scared me.” Peggy paused, pursed her lips, and ended the discussion with a short nod.

“Alright then. If you need anything -”

“I’m fine,” Toni said again.

Peggy cleared her throat. “Right. Well, we did good work today, Toni. Found good clothes. Clothes that will suit you. Now, on to how you present -”

“God, do you ever just shut _up?_ ” Toni groaned, rubbing her eyes with her (gloved) hands. “I mean, what’s the big deal? I don’t give a fuck about who doesn’t like me being a woman, who doesn’t like me being gay. I _don’t care._ Yes, I love the clothes - the dresses, the shirts, the suits, but it doesn’t _matter_ to me. It doesn’t matter how I present, how I act, because I’m going to present as me and I’m going to act as me. What _matters_ is carrying on my father’s legacy. _I’m_ his legacy now. And his legacy, and my legacy, is Steve -”

She looked Peggy in the eyes.

“Steve Rogers.”

Peggy Carter’s gaze softened. She smiled; briefly, fleetingly, ever so faintly.

“Captain America,” Toni breathed out, “has to be my legacy. Do you understand?”

The woman didn’t say anything for a while.

Then,

“Do you remember when you called me Aunt Peggy?” she asked. “It was so long ago. You probably don’t remember much of your childhood, but I visited often. Howard didn’t like it. I could tell he didn’t like you much either. But Maria… oh, Maria. I don’t know if you know how much that woman loved you. God, she loved you with all her heart. She just… couldn’t find the words.

“She found the words with me, though. Always talking about how proud she was of you. Always talking about how worried she was, wondering how the world would treat you. If they would be harsh, if they would be kind. Afterall, you were her strong, brave little girl. You were perfect. And so, so smart.

“You were everything to Maria and everything to Howard. Even though he never showed it, even if he grew so frustrated around you, you were everything. And if being everything meant being his legacy, than so be it. And you were Jarvis’ everything. And when I was allowed to visit, you were my everything. But Howard loved you, Toni. They all loved you.

“Steve would’ve loved you, if he had lived, if we had stayed together. Alas -” she shrugged and took a sip of her coffee “-it just wasn’t meant to be. That’s alright, though. He saved a lot of people. And I married John, a man who was rescued by Steve. Fought with Steve. I had two beautiful children with him. I continued my work. I continued on without Steve, darling, even if Howard couldn’t.

“Even after he died, Steve was still changing my life. That’s okay. I can hold on to him and let go at the same time. I can love and move on. He is gone, and that’s okay. That is truth.We lose people, and it’s always sad. I lost him, and it was sad. He left, and that’s sad, but that’s what it is. I am no longer angry. I am no longer bitter. He loved me, I loved him. He misses me, I miss him. And that’s okay. I am who I am. And I’m sorry I missed out on so much of your life, dear. I’m sorry I missed the best parts. I’m sure Steve would be too.”

She took Toni’s shaking hands in her own and rubbed her thumbs against Toni’s palms.

“Do you understand?” she asked quiet. “He is gone, Toni. Like Howard, like Maria, like Jarvis. The people who left us - they are gone. That’s alright. We don’t have to keep searching. We can rest now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you all enjoyed! how do you think i should fit a reunion between team tony and team cap in between civil war and infinity war (yes, i am planning to go that far)?  
> most updates are on saturdays.  
> please leave a comment down below and tell me what you thought! have a great day.  
> by the way, iron man territory is coming up :)


	9. chapter nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> toni gives in to the pressure, gains a couple friends, and loses something in the end.

_ Steve isn’t my legacy.  _

Jarvis was gone, a memory lingering, a voice barely there. A protection that was defeated, a stronghold that was brought down in a night where all she could remember was hands hitting, hands hitting, words screaming. 

“Toni? Earth to Toni?”

“What?” Toni jerked her head up. Happy and Rhodey were leaning over the table, a system of blueprints laid out. Rhodey motioned to them. “Are you gonna help or not?”

“Oh. Yeah, sorry. Spacing.”

“We need to do something about all of these catwalks,” Happy mumbled, partly to Toni and partly to the blueprints. “Too hard to get around. Not enough protection.”

“I love my catwalks,” said Toni, hands on hips. “You’re just gonna have to deal with them.”

“Jesus, where - where are the bananas?” Happy cried, ignoring Toni’s last comment and swiveling around. “God, this place is a maze. The fuck’s the kitchen - Christ, Toni, I thought I got bananas!”

“Happy, what’s your priority here? Your bananas or this Malibu place?” Toni shouted. Rhodey chuckled behind her and Toni - suddenly Toni felt  _ happy.  _

_ Steve isn’t my legacy.  _

The three of them crowded around the table, bumping elbows and commenting on each other’s breath for a couple hours. Personally, Toni didn’t care for another house but Happy and Rhodey both saw it as a necessity. 

“A safe house,” Happy had concluded in an argument the night before.

“Trust us, Toni, it’s gonna be great,” Rhodey added on. “Concrete walls, giant workshop underneath.” He had walked forward and stood in front of the windows, spreading his arms as if he was envisioning the future of New York, not a mansion. “And lots of protection.”

“I don’t need protection,” Toni repeatedly told them.  _ Jarvis.  _ “I can take care of myself. I’m a big girl, remember?” and she would slide on her tinted sunglasses and flip the world off. 

“We just want you safe,” Rhodey said, turning to face her and meet her gaze. She strode across the catwalk to clasp his hands in her own. 

“I know,” she said, voice hushed and eyes not meeting his. “I know. I love you for it, I do, but this is all just… a little excessive. We’re wasting time when we could be preparing for  _ this  _ tower.”

“Think of it as a vacation house,” Rhodey said, unleashing his hands from hers and spreading his arms, as if he was giving a persuasive presentation.  _ Hey! Come help us build this really fancy and flamboyant mansion down in Malibu! It’s gonna have a moat! Isn’t that just so fucking cool? I’d know I’d want to live there. Wait, you  _ don’t  _ want to leave your home? The one that you’ve felt so safe in for so many months? The one where you’ve grown familiar with the shadows and creaks and the shield above your bed? The one where you’re growing an empire in? The one that shields you from the dark? Are you sure? Stubborn bitch.  _

She smiled - forced, pained, and hoped Rhodey didn’t notice her picking at her manicured nails. She was almost finished with the right hand and was beginning to work on the left. 

“You know what?” she said - forced, pained, now diligently scratching at the scars under her white lace gloves. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. This is a wonderful idea. Where are the plans? We should start construction immediately.”

And she could tell that Rhodey was too ecstatic with her agreeing with him that he let out a loud guffaw and grabbed her hand, leading her down the catwalk to the dining table. 

She found herself nodding along and agreeing to everything they pointed out, despite their voices being muted. Their mouths produced words spoken by a long lost dream, a long lost friend, someone, someone, someone, speaking, speaking to her, caring for her, breathing with her - 

_ Jarvis.  _

“I’m tired,” Toni abruptly stated. The others stopped talking. 

“Oh?” Rhodey said, hesitantly. He straightened his back and moved one-foot backward as if he was guarding himself and his precious ideas to protect her. God, he had only always wanted to protect her. 

“Do you want to lie down?” Happy asked. “I can get you a banana. I found where they are. Maybe you’re low on potassium.”

“No, I think it’s just the… stitches, and such,” she said dismissively. “You two keep working. I’m just gonna rest my old eyes for a little bit.”

Rhodey couldn’t help but notice how she didn’t go to her bedroom but to her workshop. He couldn’t help but notice how the windows into it dimmed, and he couldn’t help but notice how she refused to come out except to grab food, water, and to go to the bathroom in the following couple weeks. She agreed with all of their ideas, so much so that Rhodey couldn’t help but wonder if she really meant it. If maybe she just wanted them to go away - all the nagging, the hair-pulling, the constant need for them to know she’s alright.

She was alright. In fact, she was better than alright. She no longer cared if she had a Malibu house. She no longer cared if May was approaching swiftly, no longer cared if she didn’t return Obadiah’s calls.  _ “I’ve found the sweetest assistant for you! You’ll love her.” “Why don’t you come to meet this girl I found to be your assistant?” “Toni, I’m worried you won’t be ready come May. How about you come to work in a few years? I have such a solid program working.” “Are you sure you’re ready to take on my work? I’ll send over some plans now, it’s quite complicated.” “Do you still want an assistant?”  _

She had found him.  _ She had found him.  _ Her boy, her beautiful beautiful boy, her protector, her savior, her life. She had found him in the records of old government recordings, weaved through networks and found his voice hovering above it all, found his laughter in the photos Aunt Peggy sent over. She found him, she found him, she found him. 

_ “Hello, Miss.” _

“Hello,” she breathed out, stepping back to admire the heartbeat of electric waves that ran through the room. He was there, he was there, he was  _ here  _ with her, he was here - 

“Welcome back,” she managed, waiting, waiting, waiting. His voice filled the room, filled her heart, filled every inch of the tower. 

_ “Thank you, miss. I’ve missed you.” _

“Oh, you beautiful, beautiful being,” she whispered. DUM-E and U whirred around in circles, confused and trying to find the source of the voice. 

_ “How can I be of service?”  _

Toni sank to her knees, letting tears fall carelessly, letting them wet her greased-up blouse. “Just… give me a minute,” she breathed. Her hands were shaking. Everything was shaking. “I have to connect you to the rest of the tower. Everything’s experimental right now, you’re only accessible through this keypad - for now, for now, but oh my God -” and Toni heard herself praising the God she lost faith in so many years ago because  _ he  _ was gifted back onto her.  _ He, he, he,  _ with his soft, warm hands, and his soothing voice, and his long, calming breaths,  _ he, he, he,  _ who would whisper to her in the nighttime, who would save her from the demons that plagued the dimly lit hallways of their mansion,  _ he, he, he,  _ who would shield her from the beatings of the monster in the workshop.  _ He, he, he.  _

JARVIS. 

“For now,” she murmured, reaching out to stroke some lost face, “You’re Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. That’s okay, that’s okay. You’re here.” 

_ “I’m here.” _

She laughed - oh, God, she laughed and threw her head back. Threw her scarred hands up to the sky and pranced around, laughing, rejoicing, dancing to the music of his voice. He was back. He was  _ hers.  _

“You saved me,” she whispered, breathless.

_ “I believe not, miss. I believe you saved yourself.” _

And she laughed.

… 

Throughout the following few weeks, Toni focused on perfecting her tower and most importantly, perfecting JARVIS. She handed over all plans for the Malibu house to Happy and Rhodey, letting them lead the project. May was now only a month away. Her birthday was now only a month away. 

_ Steve isn’t my legacy.  _

She downed several cups of strong black coffee a day; she lead the construction for the offices below her penthouse, and she and JARVIS were working on designing ways to incorporate his intelligence to be used in every part of the tower and her own personal technology. And still, she had to sort through all of the paperwork that came with taking over Stark Industries, and the endless calls with Stane,  _ “What’s that new tech you just made? A robot or somethin’? The one that talks?” “Toni, answer my calls. We need to talk, face-to-face.” “Who the ‘ell is Jarvis? Wasn’t that Howard’s old butler?” “May’s coming up, Toni. Have you thought about our conversation?” _ , and her attack plan. To sort through the mess going through her head, she made a list of things to figure out before her Big Day. 

 

  * __how will i get them to like me?__


  * _what will be my first talking point? how will i engage them?_


  * _how will i show how the company should progress?_


  * _how_ should _the company progress?_


  * _how can i prove that i can do this?_


  * _how, how, how?_



 

There were many instances where she found herself rambling on and on for pages in the ruined notebook, pouring out thoughts and grievances in mixtures of languages. A sentence in Russian, a paragraph in Bulgarian, a few words in Italian and then back to English. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, spiraling down in the spiral notebook. JARVIS tried to soothe her manic scribblings but she only copied down his words. Her notebook became her confidant, her JARVIS became the recipient of her worries. Drawings and designs lived on ripped up pages crumpled up in the trashcan, dreams she had of a tin man flying around in the stars, or green, green eyes lost in the long corridors of a wretched school and then found again on the top of the highest hill. Everything was happening and yet nothing was being done, and Rhodey and Happy asked too many questions, and she realized that with JARVIS came the  _ are you alright?  _ and sometimes she longed to drop the pen or the screwdriver or the keyboard and to stumble away to a nearby bar, to lose herself in the hair of some strange woman. To love and to lose but not regret anything, not for one minute. 

But she couldn’t. 

And she had to put away the notebook, and she had to be strong, and she had to be put together, even when creating lists soon became the only thing that kept her sane. Kept her busy when there were no trinkets left for her to fiddle with. 

In her downtime (the scarce hour or so in the nighttime when the workers had gone home to their bed and their wives and Rhodey was fast asleep), she turned to the paintbrush and the pencil. 

She had heard that Captain America was a gifted artist. She wondered if he’d be proud of her indescribable scribbles - splotches of color on a canvas, depicting some unknown expanse of space. Stars lost in the cosmos. A moon hanging by a single thread. The time in the evening when everything was so incredibly still and the buildings were bathed in a golden light, but only one side. The beauty of a sunrise, the tragedy of a sunset. Sketches of Rhodey slumped against a wall or huddled with Happy. A memory of a man - her savior, and his rough hands. Her own scarred. Sketchbooks filled with hundreds of them, paintings stacked away in closets never again to see the light of day. But she was so incredibly busy - she had so much to do, so little time. 

_ Steve isn’t my legacy. _

Christ, she would think during late nights when there was nothing else to do but think, why do I waste my time with silly drawings and poems on pages? I must work. I have to work. There’s so much work to be done. Jesus, where’d I put the vodka?

_ “I would advise you to get some rest, miss. You’ve been awake for 52 hours and have only slept for five.” _

“I’m okay, JARVIS,” she said to the AI. To him. “I need to finish this update of yours.”

_ “It can wait.” _

“No, it can’t!” she snapped, shocking both herself and the AI into silence. After a few moments, she let out a tightly-held breath and set down the keypad. “Listen… JARVIS. You’re very new technology, a type of technology that hasn’t really been introduced to the world yet. You’re just a theory right now. So I need to enhance your firewalls - for  _ your  _ protection.”

_ Oh how much the tables have turned,  _ she thought.

_ “You’re going manic, miss. Your mental patterns have shifted dramatically. I take it you were not an avid artist before this year? Nor a poet?” _

“I’m neither,” she said. “I’ve never have been.”

_ “Your sketches speak differently.” _

“What’s your point, JARVIS?” God, she hated getting angry at him. 

_ “You are under an immense amount of pressure and stress at the moment. I was wondering if perhaps you could - if it’s not much trouble - forget my own security at the moment and focus on… possibly creating a system that lets me monitor your health? Heart rate, blood pressure, brain waves. The like.” _

Toni sat against one of the metal walls, lost in thought. Creating that, combined with all the work she had to do on the tower, and juggling Obadiah’s needs - 

“JARVIS… I’m not sure.”

_ “Please, miss. Abandon some of your work projects. Your health comes first, and from what I know I am the only one who particularly pays attention to it.” _

“Fine,” she grumbled. “But it’s not a big deal. I can tell when my heart’s beating quickly.”

_ “It’s more than that, miss, _ ” JARVIS said. Toni wondered if AIs could whisper. She wondered if they have emotion, like how Jarvis had it. Wondered if he actually cared for her, or if she had subconsciously programmed him to do so. Just as she was reflecting, her phone rang once more. 

Obadiah Stane. 

“What do you want, Obie?” Toni sighed, having lost all patience.

_ “God, finally. It took you long enough, Tones.” _

_ Don’t call me Tones. Only Rhodey is allowed to do that.  _

_ “We really need to talk.” _

“About what?”

_ “Everything. Stark Industries, you, your image. The new tech.”  _

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and she stood, leaning against the wall in a guarded position. As if he was in the room with her, ready to pounce. 

_ “Yes, you do. C’mon Toni, don’t be like that. I’m willing to offer you a deal. Meet me at headquarters.” _

“Rather meet  _ me  _ at headquarters,” she said, letting her cockiness show. “Half the levels are finished.” 

She heard a visible sigh on the other line and felt something drop within her. 

_ You’re supposed to be supportive of me.  _

_ You’re supposed to be his replacement.  _

_ You’re supposed to  _ help. 

_ Jarvis, Jarvis, help me.  _

_ “Please don’t make this any more difficult. I’m not in the mood. Just be in the main conference room in an hour, alright?” _

 

“It’s 2:24 AM.”

_ “You’re still awake, aren’t you?” _

“Bastard,” Toni muttered after he had hung up, leaving her staring at his caller ID. “What’s gotten into him?”

_ “Are you sure you’re okay with going?” _ JARVIS asked her. She could almost see him twiddling his thumbs, looking her over - checking for scrapes and bruises. Always fretting, making his soft frown lines deeper. She smiled despite the ache in her heart. 

“Don’t be stupid, Edwin. Of course, I’m not. I have to go, though, don’t I?”

_ “It’s the wisest decision.” _

“Call the police or something if I’m not back by 10:00 AM. Tell Rhodey not to be freaked out by me not being here. Or by you.” Christ, she hadn’t told Rhodey or Happy yet. They had tested JARVIS’ mechanisms when everyone was asleep, but it was growing harder and harder as he spread throughout the building and as Rhodey spent more and more time there. And Happy was always looking over her shoulder or by her side, making sure no assassin had tried to claim her life again. 

_ Lying out there. The cold. It was so cold. She missed those eyes, those green, green eyes. She missed his rough, wrinkled hands. She missed -  _

“I’ll be back soon,” she called, heading out the door. Happy was gonna have a fit. 

… 

“Toni! So glad of you to join us,” Obadiah greeted, standing from his seated position at the head of the table. Toni couldn’t help but feel that she should be there. Nevertheless, she let herself be pulled into the hug and gave a quick pat on the back. 

“Nice to see you, Uncle Obie,” she said. Obadiah laughed - the type of laugh someone makes when their kid does something stupid and they really want to say,  _ oh, haha! Great joke. Shut up now, stop embarrassing me.  _

There was a woman in the room - a tall, poised woman, with long orange-red hair and a face splattered with freckles. 

“Virginia Potts,” she said, holding a well-manicured hand out. Toni did the same, gazing warmly into the other woman’s eyes. 

“Antonia Stark. You can call me Toni. What can I call you?”

“Ms. Potts,” said the woman. Toni made a face. 

“No, that doesn’t work at all. Are you kidding me? Have your friends been calling you that all your life? Not even by your first name? Not that that’s much better.”

Virginia Potts let a small smile break free of her serious facade. 

“My friends sometimes joked around that my freckles are like pepper,” she said. “It was a childhood nickname.”

“That’s just downright cruel. Pepper it is.”

“Shall we get started?” Obadiah asked, breaking the two’s conversation. Toni thought it was going well. “Toni, please have a seat.”

“Call me Dr. Stark,” Toni said, glancing over at Pepper whilst seating herself. She held the same expression as before but maintained the slight smile. Good. A small victory in Toni’s favor. “Obadiah, is this lady the person you referred to me?”

“That she is,” Obadiah said, leaning forward in his leather chair. Toni refused to let her posture go. “Ms. Potts is one of the most capable women I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. She will do great under you, Toni. Truly, a thriving worker at Stark Industries.”

“Great,” Toni said, clasping her hands together. “I’m excited. So, what is she? An assistant?”

“She can speak for herself,” Pepper interrupted. Toni grinned. 

“That she can.”

“I will be an assistant of sorts,” Pepper said, staring Toni dead in the eye. “I will not be there to clean up your messes, Dr. Stark.”

“Toni.”

“Obadiah wants me to oversee your progress at Stark Industries and to help guide you. I will also be assisting with some decision making and carrying out select orders.”

Toni frowned. 

“Uh, why would you be overseeing  _ my  _ progress? Wouldn’t I be overseeing yours?”

“She’ll be reporting back to me,” Obadiah broke in. Toni’s frown deepened into a scowl. 

“What are you talking about? Obie, in less than a month I will be taking over as CEO of Stark Industries, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Soon, you’ll work for  _ me. _ ”

“We are business partners, Toni,” Obadiah reminded her. She hated how her voice came out cracked and desperate as if she was begging them to see her point, while he was always so calm and collected. “I just want to make sure your ascend into SI goes smoothly, and Ms. Potts is here to help.”

“You’re controlling me,” Toni spat bitterly. “We may be partners but I don’t remember signing off on you becoming co-CEO.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Obadiah said with a sigh. Toni stood up suddenly and took a step forward, which didn’t help her case.

“I am not being dramatic, Obadiah, I am being logical. I am the rightful heir to the company - me and me only. Not you, not Pepper - although she does seem very capable.  _ Me. _ ”

“Are you really sure you’re ready to take on such a burden?” Obadiah asked her. God, why was he so  _ calm?  _

“Christ, Obie! Yes! I am! Was that the deal you wanted to talk about so desperately? That - that Stark Industries is no longer  _ Stark  _ Industries? That you take over everything and just slap my name on the label beside yours?” and her hands were shaking and pointing all over the place, gesturing wildly while her hair flew with her jerking movements. “That you make me take a seat while you take over the company my father passed onto me? That we become ‘co-CEOs’? What if I don’t take it, huh? What will you do then? You can’t stop me -”

Obadiah jumped up, faster than Toni would’ve expected him to, and suddenly she felt the blow of his ringed hand on her cheek, felt herself stumble, felt the burning heat of the pain, felt the memories clawing their way out of the trashcan. Felt Obadiah grip her wrists, ceasing her shaking hands but failing to cease the tremors that ran down her spine. 

“Jesus  _ Christ  _ do you ever shut up?” he whispered, his hushed yet deadly words sending spit flying into her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Pepper standing stiffly by the wall, both hands on her binder. “Fuck, woman. Don’t you ever think about anybody other than your goddamn self? Huh? Your precious Rhodey, your bodyguard? They’re just trying to keep you  _ safe _ , and you turn them away. You think you know what’s right. And I’m trying to keep this company  _ safe  _ from someone as incompetent and as selfish and stubborn as  _ you.  _ So why don’t you just fucking shut up for once in your shitty life and let the grownups talk, eh?”

He let her pull away. Reached for Pepper’s binder, who gave it to him willingly. A little too willingly. Slid it across the table, watched as Toni slowly picked it up. 

“You’ll, uh, you’ll find all of my terms in there,” he said. “Listen, Toni. I’m just trying to keep everyone happy. All our workers and all our partners. I’ve done this longer, I know what’s best. Doesn’t mean I don’t want you working as the Stark in  _ Stark  _ Industries. You just don’t have any experience. I know how to handle this.”

“Right,” Toni said. Agreeing with him. The word felt dull and dry in her mouth.  Howard Obadiah sniffed and wiped his mouth. “Call me in the morning, Toni. We can work this out. It’ll all be okay. Get some rest, too. You look terrible.”

“Right,” Toni said. 

“Ms. Pott’s business card is in there, you can call her too. You two should set up a meeting or somethin’.”

“Okay,” Toni said.

“Get out of here.”

“Okay,” Toni said. Turned and walked out. 

Her head was buzzing, it was so full of bees. Honey pooled out of her ears, thick and sweet. The buzzing grew louder. 

… 

Could some distant starman hear her crying from inside her closet? She wondered if it could be so dark in such a small place that she could see stars. See, the thing is, if it was so dark that she didn’t have depth perception, the smallest space could be the largest space. There's bound to be stars somewhere. 

As a kid, she watched the stars fall and wondered if she could one day catch one in a jar, then store it away in the cabinet for a little while, taking it out only when the nights were cloudy and she couldn’t see the stars. She would do the same thing with the moon, too. There were too many nights where the moon abandoned her. 

And on the nights it did, she would turn to another being. Someone who would never leave her. Someone she could hug close in the night, even when the house was empty and the only sound was the rain outside. Steve Rogers. A hero. A legend. A man, who might’ve hurt like her. Who might’ve been afraid of thunderstorms (but only when she was alone) like her. Who might’ve had nightmares like her. She had read somewhere about how soldiers sometimes relieve their experiences and that they can wake up screaming, forget where they are, forget that they’re safe. She wondered if that meant she was a soldier. Cap might’ve made her a soldier - an honorary one; she didn’t think she’d have the guts to go out there and kill people like he did. Even if it meant fighting for her country. Did that make her a coward?

She wondered if Cap was ever called a coward. He must’ve felt awful about not being able to enlist for the longest time. Would she feel awful? She would feel awful she couldn’t be there for anyone - to hold their hand if they were in pain, to give a quick hug to Cap before he went off to fight the bad guys. (He would, of course, return the hug - he was a gentleman and he was chivalrous.) She wondered if he ever loved anyone and if it was hard for him to leave them. He and Aunt Peggy were close, weren’t they? But did they love each other, the way Toni loved those green, green eyes? Love was such a beautiful thing. 

Too bad it was a fairytale. 

Had Cap ever known betrayal? she wondered, searching her closet for stars. As of yet, she hadn’t found any. Perhaps, if he was still alive today, he would’ve. Aunt Peggy had moved on. The world had moved on. New and old veterans have been forgotten. Perhaps, perhaps. 

She wondered if she’d ever find him. If she would ever have the chance to tell him how much she loved him, how much she knew that he would love her, that he would care for her, that he would protect her. If only, if only, if only. 

_ “Miss? Are you alright?” _

“You’re not real,” she whispered. “You’re not him.”

_ “I’m sorry miss, I don’t know what you’re referring too.”  _

And her weeping grew louder. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry i've been gone! i ran out of ideas on how to progress to the next stage of this story, and then i had a show, then we went on vacation and after that, i was away from the internet for a few weeks. i'm back now; my creative juices have begun to flow once again.   
> i really hope that you enjoyed this chapter! please leave a review down below for encouragement, and a big thank you to those who have continued to read.


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